A leader of a former Tuareg rebel group who was killed in a blast in northern Mali this weekend was in fact "assassinated", an umbrella ex-rebel group said today.
Cheikh Ag Aoussa, the military leader of a former rebel group, was leaving a meeting yesterday at the office of the UN MINUSCA mission in Kidal when his car exploded.
An African military source who is part of the UN deployment said his car struck a mine and that he died on the spot. A local official confirmed he was killed by a mine.
"All the findings have ruled out (the possibility) that the car passed over the mine. The car was booby-trapped and therefore it is a targeted assassination," said the former rebel Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) of which Aoussa was a member.
"Every indication is that the explosive device was placed on the deceased during the meeting.
"As usual, the vehicles of the CMA representatives were parked inside the MINUSMA camp for the duration of the meeting."
The CMA called on the UN force and French forces in the country to cooperate with it to open an investigation into the circumstances of the "odious and undoubtedly pre-meditated assassination," according to a statement issued today.
MINUSMA spokeswoman Radhia Achouri said that Aoussa would attend meetings along with other CMA figures at the UN base "every 15 days" to discuss security in the region.
According to a CMA document seen by AFP, Aoussa was leaving the UN compound with four other CMA leaders following evening prayers when the blast occurred a few hundred metres (yards) from the base.
A Tuareg from the Ifoghas tribe, Aoussa was the number two in the High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA), one of a myriad of armed groups in northern Mali.
The HCUA was formed mainly by dissident elements of al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine, one of the jihadist groups that occupied parts of northern Mali in 2012, throwing the country into chaos.
Aoussa had joined Ansar Dine as the rebellion broke out and served as right-hand man to its leader Iyad Ag Ghaly.
He broke away in 2013 -- just after a French-led intervention to halt the jihadists' onslaught -- to join a different group that would later become the HCUA.
Mali last year concluded a peace deal between the government, its armed proxies, and former Tuareg-led rebels who have launched several uprisings since the 1960s. The deal's implementation has been patchy.
Kidal has been rocked by deadly fighting for control between armed groups which were party to the peace deal.
The fresh unrest has sparked international concern, with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon saying in a report published this week that the pro-government groups and former rebels involved in the clashes should potentially face sanctions.
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