Armed Islamists who control northern Mali on Thursday captured a government town in the country’s centre and will push further south, an Ansar Dine official said.
“We are currently in Konna for the jihad. We almost entirely control the town. Afterward we are going to continue” heading south, Abdou Dardar, who was reached by telephone from the capital Bamako, said.
Dardar, whose remarks were translated by an interpreter from Niger, said he was speaking in the name of all the Islamists.
The north has been controlled for nine months by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), and Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith), who all promote the application of Islamic law.