BAMAKO (Reuters) - The Malian army has sent reinforcements in the Mopti region where it is expected to attack Islamist rebels who control since April last two thirds of Mali, it was learned Wednesday source close to the Ministry of Défense.
Thegovernment forces and Islamist insurgents clashed in the region on Monday, after eight months of status quo.
"We have deployed technical resources and reinforcements on the front," said a military official in Bamako. He did not elaborate on these renforts.
"We believe that the Islamists want Sévaré attack," he added, referring to a town located less than 10 km from Mopti, where government forces are stationed and where the main airport région.
Malian authorities believe the Islamist coalition, which includes Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) Ansar Dine and Mujao (Movement for the uniqueness and Jihad in West Africa), brought their fighters bastions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu to launch an assault against Mopti.
It is unclear whether the insurgents really want to move to the south where it is a show of force before the planned peace talks in Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso voisin.
CITY STRATÉGIQUE
TheseTalks between the Malian government and rebel groups were open Thursday, but authorities announced Wednesday that they were repoussés.
Bamako, thousands of students marched through the streets to demand a solution to the political crisis that has persisted since the coup last March. They blocked the two main bridges over the river Niger.
Tuesday evening, the Malian army announced that it had postponed the day Islamist attack in the region Mopti.
Mopti, 450 km northeast of the capital, occupies a strategic position. The city, one of the most northern forces still controlled by regular houses, besides the airport, an important military base malienne.
group Ansar Dine announced last week it had ended a cease-fire because the project of the international community to deploy a West African desert in the north to hunt rebelles.
Tuareg rebels backed by radical Islamists sometimes allied to AQIM, seized in April 2012 from the north by taking advantage of the disorganization of the army and the political vacuum created by the military coup in Bamako.< / p>
In December, the Security Council of the UN has approved plans to deploy a contingent of West African troops in the north to hunt jihadist groups. The operation should not be launched by septembre.
Guy Kerivel for the French service, edited by Gilles Trequesser
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