Mali's Tuareg-led rebels sign landmark peace deal
Source: Yahoo! News / AFP
Bamako (AFP) - Mali's Tuareg-led rebel alliance signed a landmark deal on Saturday to end years of unrest in a nation riven by ethnic divisions and in the grip of a jihadist insurgency.
The Algiers Accord aims to bring stability to the country's vast northern desert, cradle of several Tuareg uprisings since the 1960s and a sanctuary for Islamist fighters linked to Al-Qaeda.
The agreement had already been signed in May by the government and loyalist militias but the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), a coalition of rebel groups, had been holding out until amendments were agreed.
Cheers broke out as Sidi Brahim Ould Sidati, a member of the Arab Movement of Azawad, put his name to the document on behalf of the CMA in a televised ceremony at a packed conference hall in the capital Bamako.
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