The military in Mali declare the takeover of power from President Amadou and close borders 2303121

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Defense News - Mali

 
 
Friday, March 23, 2012, 06:58 AM
 
The military in Mali declare the takeover of power from President Amadou and close the borders.

Mutinous soldiers said they seized power in Mali on Thursday, March 22, 2012, and ordered its borders closed, threatening to reignite instability in a Saharan region shaken by the conflict in Libya. The overnight coup bid was led by low-ranking soldiers angry at the government's failure to stamp out a two-month-old separatist rebellion in the north of the west African state.

     
Mutinous soldiers said they seized power in Mali on Thursday, March 22, 2012, and ordered its borders closed, threatening to reignite instability in a Saharan region shaken by the conflict in Libya. The overnight coup bid was led by low-ranking soldiers angry at the government's failure to stamp out a two-month-old separatist rebellion in the north of the west African state.
Mutinous soldiers gather in front of the State Television Station in Bamako, capital of Mali,
Thursday, March 22, 2012.
     

Heavy weapons fire rang out throughout the night as the presidential palace came under attack. The whereabouts of President Amadou Toumani Toure, who oversaw a decade of relative stability, are unknown.

The takeover was announced on state radio by Lieutenant Amadou Konare, spokeman for a National Committee for Redressment of Democracy and Restoration of the State (CNRDR), which seized state television and the presidential palace in the capital Bamako on Wednesday, March 21, 2012.

Konare said the country's constitution had been suspended and that all republican institutions had been dissolved, adding an inclusive government of national unity will be formed to organize elections as soon as possible.

The CNRDR also announced a curfew and the closure of Mali's terrestrial and aerial borders.