US imposes sanctions on extremist group in Mali

       
The Obama administration has imposed sanctions on the Islamist extremist group that seized much of northern Mali last year and prompted a French military intervention.
    
The State Department's declaration of Ansar Dine as a foreign terrorist organization blocks any assets it has in the U.S. and bans Americans from doing business with it.
    
Washington issued similar measures against the group's leader, Iyad Ag Ghali, last month.
     
Aided by al-Qaida's North Africa wing, Ansar Dine took control of much of northern Mali after a tribal rebellion. In Timbuktu, it imposed strict Sharia law and forced thousands to flee; others were tortured and executed.
     
A French-led intervention in January turned the tide, pushing the rebels back to mountainous hideouts near the Algeria border.
     
The U.N. also set global sanctions against Ansar Dine.
 
On Thursday, Malian and French forces killed around 10 Islamist militants during overnight clashes in Timbuktu, the French army said.
   
"The last clashes in the airport area took place just before 0700," army spokesman Thierry Burkhard. "About 10 terrorists were killed during this operation."
   
A suicide car-bomber killed a Malian soldier and wounded six others in a raid on the airport in Timbuktu overnight, a Mali army spokesman said earlier, an attack which triggered a counter-assault by French forces.
   
Burkhard said two Malian soldiers had been slightly wounded from friendly fire after French troops intervened.


REUTERS/AP