Mali Ex-Rebels Say Prominent Leader Shot Dead

A former rebel leader in northern Mali was killed in the capital Bamako on Tuesday, according to the spokesman for a militia alliance in the region.

Sidi Brahim Ould Sidati was the rotating president of the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), a mostly Tuareg alliance that rose up against the central government in 2012.

The report by spokesman Almou Ag Mohamed on social media was confirmed by a doctor and a close associate of Ould Sidati.

The reason for the killing in the poor Sahel country was not immediately clear.

The CMA brought together Tuareg and nationalist Arab groups — including a faction led by Ould Sidati — fighting Mali forces in the north until they signed a peace accord in 2015.

The accord, seen as crucial to ending Mali’s grinding conflict, has yet to be fully implemented in the former French colony.

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