Last night in Kidal, a sniper fired at police on a regular patrol, and an MNLA member was wounded allegedly by two jihadists on a motorcycle who fired at both the patrol and the MNLA; the MNLA blamed security forces for the incident. The al Murabitoon Brigade, a merger of Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s forces and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), claimed a Feb. 17 attack against French forces at the airport in Timbuktu, a similar rocket attack against a base in Gao, and the kidnapping of Red Cross workers in northern Mali.
