Mali Islamists Briefly Detain Protesters BAMAKO, Mali (AP) - Radical Islamists in northern Mali briefly detained about 90 protesters and whipped them in what appeared to be an attempt to intimidate residents of a town, a witness said Saturday. Members of the sect Ansar Dine went door to door on Saturday morning to arrest the leaders of an earlier protest against them in Goundam, a town about 60 miles west of Timbuktu, said a resident, Hama Cisse. The protest erupted Friday after a young Islamist militant whipped a woman carrying a baby for not wearing what he considered to be an adequate veil, Mr. Cisse said. The baby fell and was critically injured, said Mr. Cisse and other residents. But Sanda Abou Mohamed, a spokesman for Ansar Dine, a group with links to Al Qaeda that vows to introduce strict Islamic laws, dismissed the protests as a smear campaign, saying that the baby had not been injured. He also maintained that the group "hasn't whipped anyone in Goundam." Another resident reached by telephone, Ousmane Yattara, said angry citizens marched toward the militants" base, vandalized the premises and took the militants" food supplies. Residents said that more than 100 people took part in Friday's protest. The situation in Goundam remained tense on Saturday, with most residents staying in their houses while the radical Islamists set up checkpoints on all roads leading to and from the town. Roughly two-thirds of the population of about 13,000 people has already fled the town, joining an estimated 300,000 people who have fled to neighboring countries or southern Mali to seek refuge from the Islamists. Mali, once considered a stable democracy, has been mired in turbulence stemming from a March coup by soldiers who defected and overthrew the democratically elected president. Ethnic Tuareg separatists took advantage of the power vacuum to rapidly encroach on the northern part of Mali, an area larger than France. But in June, Ansar Dine declared that it had driven out another rebel group and had assumed control over northern Mali.