Military Coup In Mali

Mali soldiers gather on a Bamako street Wednesday. Scores of Malian soldiers were displeased with the administration of the outsted regime.

Rebel soldiers announced early today that they have seized control of Mali after a palace attack, the Associated Press reported.

The whereabouts of the President, Amadou Toumani Toure, were unknown at press time. Click to read more.....

The soldiers, in a brief statement read on national television, said they seized power in protest at the government’s failure to quell a nomad-led rebellion in the north of the country that have claimed many lives and left hundreds of thousands homeless in recent months. The coup has been fronted by soldiers of the rank of captain or lower, Reuters said.

It was learnt that the army has for weeks appealed to the government for better weapons to fight the northern Tuareg rebels, now bolstered by heavily-armed ethnic allies who fought on Gaddafi’s side last year but have returned to Mali.

On national television, a group of around 20 soldiers in military fatigues were shown crowding around a desk, facing the camera. They announced that the country is under the control of the military’s National Committee for the Reestablishment of Democracy and the Restoration of the State, or CNRDR. They said they were suspending Mali’s constitution and dissolving its institutions, AP said.

Click HERE to read more