Northern Mali Residents Rise Up Against Islamists

Residents of Goundam, in Mali’s Timbuktu region, rose up against the armed group Ansar Dine on Friday after the group carried out beatings in its bid to impose strict Islamic law.

Goundam residents said people began demonstrating after the group whipped a woman holding an infant. One resident said the situation was calmer, but tense by Friday evening. He said five vehicles with Ansar Dine reinforcements arrived in the late afternoon in Goundam, a town about 80 kilometers southwest of the city of Timbuktu. Ansar Dine threatened it would round up demonstrators and the streets cleared out, he said.

Hours earlier, at mid-day local time, tires burned in the streets of Goundam, and youths carrying clubs and machetes were rallying throughout the town.

Goundam lies in the zone that was seized by Tuareg separatists and Islamic militants in late March and is now completely controlled by Islamic groups, including Ansar Dine.