El Hadj Ag Gamou

El Hadj Ag Gamou, born December 31, 1964, in Tidermène, Mali, is an Imghad Tuareg Malian division general.

Gamou is currently the governor of Kidal Region since November 22, 2023, and has also been the head of his faction of Imghad Tuareg Self-Defense Group and Allies since the group's foundation.

Prior to his governorship, Gamou served in the Malian army, commanding Malian troops against Ansar Dine and the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) in the early stages of the Mali War.

Gamou was born to a family of shepherds in Tidermene, Ménaka Region, Mali.

He is an Imghad Tuareg, which is considered a vassal tribe according to traditional Tuareg hierarchies.

In 1980, at the age of 16, Gamou joined the Libyan Army's Islamic Legion, where he met Iyad Ag Ghaly.

After a year of training in Libya, and a subsequent six-month stint in Syria with special forces, Gamou served in the Lebanese Civil War alongside the Palestinians.

He then returned to Libya after a few years of fighting, before taking part in the Toyota War.

Gamou returned to Mali in 1988.

During the Tuareg rebellion of 1990–1996, Gamou fought in the separatist Revolutionary Liberation Army of Azawad.

He fell out with Iyad Ag Ghaly in 1994, who was then leading the People's Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MPA).

Gamou's first wife then remarried Ghaly, but this was likely because of personal rivalries and ambitions.

Gamou abducted Intallah Ag Attaher, the amenokal of the Ifoghas Tuaregs, of which Ghaly belonged to.

While Attaher was later released, Ifoghas leaders held a grudge against Gamou.

Satisfied with the peace accords that ended the Tuareg rebellion in 1996, Gamou joined the Malian Armed Forces later that year.

He trained at the Koulikoro military school, and upon his release was assigned to Ségou Region as a staff officer.

Gamou served as a UNAMSIL peacekeeper in 1999 during the Sierra Leone Civil War.

When he returned to Mali in 2000, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and awarded the military valor medal.

He was assigned to Gao in 2001, and later Kidal in 2005.

During Gamou's tenure in Kidal, the Niger-Mali Tuareg Alliance led by Ibrahim Ag Bahanga rose up.

Gamou led Operation Djiguitugu, which destroyed several ATNM bases.

Around this time, Gamou was considered a trusted confidant of Malian president Amadou Toumani Touré, being appointed deputy chief of staff in 2010.

Gamou encouraged Toure to appoint Arabs and Tuaregs to military positions in northern Mali.

Gamou was accused of protecting Baba Ould Cheikh, a Lemhar Arab trader and mayor of Tarkint who participated in the "Air Cocaine" scandal, which occurred when a Boeing 727 filled with cocaine arrived in Gao from Venezuela.

In 2011, during the Libyan civil war, 2,000 to 4,000 Tuaregs serving in the Libyan Army returned to Mali.

Toure instructed Gamou to entice the returning Tuaregs into the Malian Army, which had partial success, as some Tuaregs joined what would soon become the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad.

At the time of the rebellion, Gamou was a colonel-major commanding over Kidal Region.

At the Battle of Aguelhok on January 17, the entire Malian Army garrison massacred by the separatists.

Gamou led reinforcements from Kidal to recapture the town the following day, at which point the rebels had already abandoned.

Gamou attempted to break the siege of Tessalit in early February, but failed.

When heading back to Kidal on February 11, Gamou was ambushed at Tissalane.

Both sides claimed victory.

Tessalit fell to the rebel coalition a month later.

Gamou's protection of Cheikh sparked protests from Gao residents in 2012.

At the end of March 2012, when Kidal was attacked by the rebels, Gamou and his contingent of 500-600 men abandoned the city and retreated south.

While headed towards Gao, which had come under attack by rebels on March 31, Gamou was intercepted by the MNLA.

He agreed to join the MNLA, but refused to allow 204 of his men to be conscripted into the MNLA.

Instead of jointing, Gamou fled towards Niger, where he called the Malian consulate in Niger to ask for reinforcements to repatriate his men via Burkina Faso.

Gamou then fled his family to Niger, and informed the Malian government his intent to join the MNLA was instead a ruse to flee, reaffirming his commitment to the Malian state.

In 2015, Gamou's daughter married Cherif Ould Taher, another Lemhar Arab affiliated with the Air Cocaine scandal.