Mali village chief shot dead by armed men

Armed men wearing turbans shot dead a village chief in north-east Mali, police said Sunday, the latest violence to hit the district where two Frenchmen were kidnapped by Al-Qaeda militants in November. “Moussa Balobo Maiga, village chief of Hombori, aged 77, was killed on Saturday night by gunshots fired by men in turbans,” local police told AFP. Another source said that “at least five armed men arrived in two vehicles in the village and took a uniformed man under hostage, forcing him to drive them to the village chief whom they shot dead.” “We do not know the identities of these men yet,” added the source. Frenchmen Philippe Verdon and Serge Lazarevic, who described themselves as a geologist and an engineer but were later identified as having had ties with mercenaries, were snatched from their hotel in Hombori. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has claimed responsibility for the incident, as well as for the kidnapping of three other Europeans in Timbuktu a day later. Besides battling the AQIM, northern Mali is also trying to put down an offensive launched by Tuareg rebels on January 17. The rebels, boosted by the return of those who had been fighting for Moamer Kadhafi in Libya, have attacked several northern towns as they demand autonomy for their nomadic desert tribe. More than 44,000 people have fled the violence to neighbouring Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso, according to data from the UN refugee agency.