Mali coup: al-Qaeda linked rebels declare independence of territory larger than France The African Union and Algeria, Mali's northern neighbour, were both quick to condemn the announcement. Ecowas, the West African regional body, has been considering sending troops into Mali to forestall further rebel advances. The rebel army is made up largely of Tuaregs, Saharan tribespeople who have been battling for independence from southern Mali since the nation's independence from France in 1960. Malian mercenaries returning from Libya after the death of Col Gaddafi strengthened the MNLA's leadership, swelled its infantry ranks and boosted its arsenal. The rebels lightning advance across Mali's north was launched as middle-ranking officers from the national army staged a coup in Bamako on March 22, creating chaos in the capital, far to the south. But there were signs last night that even among the rebels, there was disagreement. An Islamist force with links to al-Qaeda that has been fighting alongside the MNLA also rejected independence for Mali's north and said instead that it wanted only to enforce strict Islamic law "from sunrise to sunset" in its newly-occupied territory. We are against rebellions. We are against independence," Omar Hamaha, Ansar Dine's military leader, said in a video obtained by the French news agency, AFP. Our war is a holy war. It's a legal war in the name of Islam. We are against revolutions not in the name of Islam. Independence is Islam. That's the real independence. It's to implement sharia, from sunrise to sunset. Western diplomats fear that the Islamists have in fact used the MNLA's advance as a cover to take more land than they would otherwise have been able to occupy. There are concerns that the area could become a training ground for al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which could then launch attacks against Western-allied nations to the south. Timbuktu, Mali's ancient desert capital, fell to the rebels last week and by Thursday the Islamists' black flag was flying over major buildings. Already, one man had his hand amputated in public for alleged theft and seven Algerian diplomats have been kidnapped. Few civilians appeared to support either the rebels' declaration of independence, or the reach of the new regime. "This is really a bad joke," Toure Alassane, a 42-year-old native of Timbuktu told Reuters at a gathering of about 200 northerners protesting against the move in Bamako. It will never work. You don't just declare independence when people don't have food to eat and nothing is functioning in the north," he said. Widespread food shortages caused by last year's rain failure have been aggravated by the insecurity. In the northern town of Kidal, one resident said control was not in the hands of the MNLA, as the group had claimed, but was being ruled by Ansar Dine. "Nothing goes without their say," the resident said.