[18] By 1 April 2012 the MNLA and Ansar Dine were in control of virtually all of northern Mali, including its three largest cities of Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu.

After the failure of the 2007–2009 rebellion in northern Niger and Mali, some Tuareg fighters left for Libya where they were integrated into the Libyan Army.

[citation needed] An alleged influx of arms, originally intended for rebels in Libya, led to a huge cache in the largely ungoverned desert areas around where the Tuareg live.

[25][26] Though some analyses have denied the movement's connections to either Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) or Muammar Gaddafi and the Libyan Civil War, the rebellion was still read as being fuelled by weapons from Libya,[citation needed] as well as leftovers from previous rebellions in "Azawad" and even from Mali's army which were taken by defecting Arab and Tuareg personnel.

[citation needed] On 26 May, the MNLA and Ansar Dine announced a pact in which they would merge to form an Islamist state, named the Islamic Republic of Azawad.

[33] MNLA launched its armed campaign in January 2012[34][35] with the goal of freeing three regions of Mali from the central government's control[26] and seeking the complete independence of "Azawad".

[39] At the end of January, they claimed to have shot down a Malian Air Force Mig-21 with surface-to-air missiles acquired from NATO arms drops over Libya.

[23] On 4 February 2012, the movement's fighters attacked government forces in Kidal with the aim of taking control of the town and occupying the two military bases there.

[45] After the March coup d'état the MNLA, as well as Ansar Dine, took control of several small towns and also the bigger cities of Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu.

[49] Two days following the declaration of independence, the Arab-dominated National Liberation Front of Azawad (FLNA) were formed to defend Timbuktu from alleged Tuareg domination.

[50] Although the MNLA collaborated with and fought alongside various Islamist groups against the Malian government in the beginning of the conflict, there were deep ideological differences between them.

[51][52] On 26 June 2012, the tension erupted into combat in Gao between the MNLA and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), with both sides firing heavy weapons.

[57] In the same month, a splinter group broke off from the MNLA, calling itself the Front for the Liberation of the Azawad (FPA), and stating that Tuareg independence was no longer a "realistic goal" and that they must concentrate on fighting the Islamists.

"[63] On 28 November 2013, after a few hundred Tuareg protesters were violently confronted by Malian soldiers over the visit of Malian Prime Minister Oumar Tatam Ly to MNLA-controlled Kidal, one of the MNLA founders, Attaye Ag Mohamed, said: "The political and military wings of the Azawad declare the lifting of the ceasefire with the central government in Bamako.

[67] Following the independence declaration, Mahmoud Ag Aghaly was appointed as the head of the interim Executive Committee of the MNLA that was said to govern "Azawad".

[68] Following their victory over the Malian army, the MNLA established their main base at the airport of Gao where they had stocked 30 functional tanks and 10 being repaired.

An unnamed commander of the MNLA said that at the beginning they were mainly armed from weapons brought by fighters returning from Libya, but that later of their equipment was seized from the Malian army.

[69] Ibrahim Ag Mohamed Assaleh, a former external relations representative of the MNLA, split off from the party in March 2014 and formed the Coalition for the People of Azawad.