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BAMAKO (Reuters) – Gunfire was heard on Sunday around the northern Mali town of Timbuktu, which rebels have said is among the three main regional centers they are targeting in a push to create a desert homeland.
“It’s our turn now. There is gunfire everywhere,” local Mohamed Ould Ali said by telephone after rebels seized other key northern towns in a lightning advance since Friday. Other local sources said the regular army was in the process of fleeing its main positions there.
(Reporting by Adama Diarra and David Lewis; Writing by Mark John Editing by Maria Golovnina)
