Colonel Malick Diaw is the leader of the military coup in Bamako, Mali. He is the deputy head of the Kati camp and one of the youngest colonels in the Malian Army. His fellow coup plotter is another commander, Gen Sadio Camara.
According to a Malian journalist, Seydou Oumar Traoré, Camara was the ex-director of the military Prytaneum of Kati who has just returned from training in Russia.
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Malick Diaw organised junior soldiers who started the coup very early in the morning with gunfire at a key military camp near the capital, Bamako.
The crowd then headed to the city where young men set a government-owned building on fire.
Meanwhile, Malick Diaw sent some junior soldiers round the country to round up and arrest all senior soldiers and commanders. Soldiers on pick-up trucks stormed the Soundiata military base in the town of Kati, where gunfire was exchanged before weapons were distributed from the armory.
Tanks and armoured vehicles were seen on the town’s streets, as well as military trucks heading for the capital, Bamako.
AFRICA DAILY NEWS, NEW YORK
