Mohamed Ag Najem | |
|---|---|
| Head of Military Operations of MNLA | |
| Assumed office 15 October 2011 [1] | |
| Personal details | |
| Nationality | Azawadi |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Libyan Arab Jamahiriya  MNLA |
| Rank | Colonel [2] |
Mohamed Ag Najem (alias Ag Mohamed Najem, [3] alternatively spelled Mahamed Ag Najim [2] [4] ) is an Azawadi colonel, who is the chief of staff of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) army.
He is thought to be born at the end of the 1950s in the Adrar des Ifoghas massif. His father of the Kel Adagh tribe was killed by the Malian army in the 1963 Tuareg rebellion at a time where he was a young child. At 20 years old he was recruited as a volunteer in the Libyan army under Gaddafi. He served in Libya and in Chad before returning to Mali to take part in the 1990 Tuareg rebellion led by Iyad Ag Ghaly. He then returned to Libya, rejecting the peace agreement signed between the Malian government and the Tuareg rebels. He became a colonel in the Libyan army and was put in charge of an elite unit in the city of Sabha. The civil war in Libya prompted his return to his homeland. [5]
At the end of 2011, he federated his former fellow Libyan soldiers, three local Tuareg clans and Tuareg deserters of the Malian Army to become the military leader of the MNLA army. [5]
Azawad, or Azawagh, was a short-lived unrecognised state lasting between 2012 and 2013. Azawagh (Azawaɣ) is the generic Tuareg Berber name for all Tuareg Berber areas, especially the northern half of Mali and northern and western Niger. The Azawadi declaration of independence was declared unilaterally by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) in 2012, after a Tuareg rebellion drove the Malian Armed Forces from the region.
The 2007-2009 Tuareg rebellion was an insurgency that began in February 2007 amongst elements of the Tuareg people living in the Sahara desert regions of northern Mali and Niger. It is one of a series of insurgencies by formerly nomadic Tuareg populations, which had last appeared in the mid-1990s, and date back at least to 1916. Populations dispersed to Algeria and Libya, as well as to the south of Niger and Mali in the 1990s returned only in the late 1990s. Former fighters were to be integrated into national militaries, but the process has been slow and caused increased resentment. Malian Tuaregs had conducted some raids in 2005–2006, which ended in a renewed peace agreement. Fighting in both nations was carried on largely in parallel, but not in concert. While fighting was mostly confined to guerrilla attacks and army counterattacks, large portions of the desert north of each nation were no-go zones for the military and civilians fled to regional capitals like Kidal, Mali and Agadez, Niger. Fighting was largely contained within Mali's Kidal Region and Niger's Agadez Region. Algeria helped negotiate an August 2008 Malian peace deal, which was broken by a rebel faction in December, crushed by the Malian military and wholescale defections of rebels to the government. Niger saw heavy fighting and disruption of uranium production in the mountainous north, before a Libyan backed peace deal, aided by a factional split among the rebels, brought a negotiated ceasefire and amnesty in May 2009.
The 2012 Tuareg rebellion was the early phase of the Mali War; from January to April 2012, a war was waged against the Malian government by rebels with the goal of attaining independence for the northern region of Mali, known as Azawad. It was led by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and was part of a series of insurgencies by traditionally nomadic Tuaregs which date back at least to 1916. The MNLA was formed by former insurgents and a significant number of heavily armed Tuaregs who fought in the Libyan Civil War.
The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad or the Azawad National Liberation Movement, formerly the National Movement of Azawad, is a militant organization based in northern Mali.
Iyad Ag Ghaly, also known as Abū al-Faḍl, is a Tuareg Islamist militant from Mali's Kidal Region. He has been active in Tuareg rebellions against the Malian government since the 1980s – particularly in the early 1990s. In 1988, he founded the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. In the latest episode of the Tuareg upheavals in 2012, he featured as the founder and leader of the Islamist militant group Ansar Dine.
On 6 April 2012, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad unilaterally declared Azawad independent from the Republic of Mali in the wake of a rebellion which was preceded by a string of other Tuareg rebellions. It is called the Independent State of Azawad.
Bilal Ag Acherif, last name alternatively spelled Cherif, is the Secretary-General of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) in Mali. He was president of a briefly independent breakaway state of Azawad from April to July 2012, before the Malian Armed Forces recaptured many cities and Azawad collapsed.
The Battle of Gao was fought between the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and the Islamist Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), along with its ally Ansar Dine, in Gao between 26–28 June 2012. By the 28 June, Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal, the three biggest cities in the disputed secessionist region of Azawad within what is recognised as Malian territory, were under the control of Ansar Dine and its Islamist allies.
The Mali War is an ongoing conflict that started in January 2012 between the northern and southern parts of Mali in Africa. On 16 January 2012, several insurgent groups began fighting a campaign against the Malian government for independence or greater autonomy for northern Mali, which they called Azawad. The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), an organization fighting to make this area of Mali an independent homeland for the Tuareg people, had taken control of the region by April 2012.
Ibrahim Ag Bahanga was a Tuareg rebel who fought in several Tuareg rebellions between 1990 and 2011. He was one of the founders of the May 23, 2006 Democratic Alliance for Change, and became the sole leader of the Tuareg rebellion in 2009 after the rest of the ADC signed peace agreements.
The Battle of Aguelhok occurred when rebels from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and Islamists groups Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb attacked a Malian army garrison base in the town of Aguelhok, Kidal Region of Northern Mali on 17 January 2012, as part of the larger Tuareg rebellion to seize all government bases in the region.
The Amachach military base in Tessalit was defended by roughly 800 Malian soldiers commanded by Colonel Kassim Goita, with 1,500 refugees being mostly Tuareg women and children. The International Committee of the Red Cross was sent to help evacuate civilians and military families, but despite the approval of the MNLA, Malian authorities delayed the operation and it was never executed as a humanitarian source. Other Malian military forces in the region of Tessalit were led by Colonels' Didier Dacko, Ould Meydou, and the well respected Tuareg commander El Hadji Ag Gamou.
The battle of Goumakoura took place during the Tuareg rebellion of 2012. On February 24, 2012, a military camp of the Malian army was attacked by the MNLA. The attack was however repelled.
The First Battle of Menaka is an attack led on January 17, 2012, by armed groups of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and marks the beginning of the Tuareg rebellion of 2012. This is the first in a series of battles aimed a capturing most of the north Mali from the army by the rebels.
The first battle of Kidal took place during the Mali war. On 30 March 2012, the city was captured by rebel MNLA and Ansar Dine forces.
Ba Ag Moussa was a Malian militant and jihadist.
Hassan Ag Fagaga, born around 1959 or 1966, in Kidal, Mali, was a Malian soldier and a Tuareg rebel.
El Hadj Ag Gamou, born December 31, 1964, in Tidermène, Mali, is an Imghad Tuareg Malian division general. Gamou is currently the governor of Kidal Region since November 22, 2023, and has also been the head of his faction of Imghad Tuareg Self-Defense Group and Allies since the group's foundation. Prior to his governorship, Gamou served in the Malian army, commanding Malian troops against Ansar Dine and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) in the early stages of the Mali War.
Cheikh Ag Aoussa, nom de guerre Abou Mohame, was a Tuareg rebel leader and prominent drug trafficker.
Mohamed Ag Intalla is a Malian Tuareg politician who has served as the amenukal of the Ifoghas Tuaregs since December 20, 2014.
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