Iyad ag Ghaly
| Iyad Ag Ghaly | |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | The Strategist |
| Born | c. 1954 (age 62–63) Abeïbara, Kidal Region, Mali |
| Allegiance | |
| Battles/wars |
Tuareg rebellion (1990–1995) Tuareg rebellion (2012) |
Iyad Ag Ghaly (Arabic: اياد اغ غالي, sometimes romanised as Ag Ghali), also known as Abū al-Faḍl (Arabic: أبو الفضل ), is a Malian Tuareg militant from Mali's Kidal Region. He has been active in the Tuareg rebellions against the government of Mali since the 1980s - particularly in the early 1990s - and, in 1988, founded the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Azawad. In the latest episode of the Tuareg upheavals in 2012, he featured as the founder and leader of the Islamist militant group Ansar Dine.
Iyad Ag Ghaly was born in 1954, into a noble family of the Ifogha tribal group (an influential Tuareg clan in the Kidal region). His gift for strategic thinking allegedly earned him the nickname, the Strategist. Sometimes between (2005-2008) he had been appointed as one of Mali's diplomats to Saudi Arabia.
On the night of 28 June 1990, Iyad ag Ghaly directed attacks by the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MPLA) on Tidermèn and Menaka that killed 18, including at least four Malian Army soldiers. These evening raids began a Tuareg rebellion in Mali. From 1991 until a formal truce with the Malian government in 1996, ag Ghaly led the rebel group Popular Movement of Azawad, one of four splinter groups created from the MPLA's disintegration after ag Ghaly signed the Tamanrasset Accords in Algeria on behalf of the Tuareg people fighting for an independent homeland in January 1991. Ag Ghaly was reportedly escorted to Bamako, Mali's southern capital, after signing the accords. As a result of his perceived closeness to the "traditional hierarchy", according to one analyst, ag Ghaly was unable to hold together the MPLA after signing the controversial agreement, though ultimately a coup in March 1991 overturned the Accords and fighting went on.
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