Mohamed Ag Najem

Mohamed Ag Najem (alias Ag Mohamed Najem,[3] alternatively spelled Mahamed Ag Najim[2][4]) is an Azawadi colonel, who is the chief of staff of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) army.

Not to be confused with Mohammed Najm.
Mohamed Ag Najem
Head of Military Operations of MNLA
Assumed office
15 October 2011[1]
Personal details
NationalityAzawadi
Military service
Allegiance Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
MNLA
RankColonel[2]

Biography

He is thought to be born at the end of the 1950s in the Adrar des Ifoghas massif. His father of the Kel Adagh tribe was killed by the Malian army in the 1963 Tuareg rebellion at a time where he was a young child. At 20 years old he was recruited as a volunteer in the Libyan army under Gaddafi. He served in Libya and in Chad before returning to Mali to take part in the 1990 Tuareg rebellion led by Iyad Ag Ghaly. He then returned to Libya, rejecting the peace agreement signed between the Malian government and the Tuareg rebels. He became a colonel in the Libyan army and was put in charge of an elite unit in the city of Sabha. The civil war in Libya prompted his return to his homeland.[5]

At the end of 2011, he federated his former fellow Libyan soldiers, three local Tuareg clans and Tuareg deserters of the Malian Army to become the military leader of the MNLA army.[5]

References
  1. Tlemçani, Salima (29 November 2011), "Pourquoi une nouvelle rébellion touarègue est sur le point d'éclater", Le Republicain, retrieved 8 April 2012
  2. "Analysis - Mali's north feared new "rogue state" in Sahara". Reuters. 4 April 2012.
  3. Linked by the rise of new al Qaeda threat, Herald Scotland, 23 March 2012
    Scott Stewart: Mali Besieged by Fighters Fleeing Libya, Stratfor, 2 February 2012
  4. "A perfect desert storm". The Economist. 17 March 2012.
  5. Ouazani, Cherif (27 January 2012). "Rébellion du MNLA au Mali : Ag Najem, ou la soif de vengeance" [MNLA rebellion in Mali: Ag Najem, or the thirst for revenge] (in French). Retrieved 7 April 2012.


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