Sidati was a signatory to a crucial 2015 peace accord. He was in his 60s and gunned down by two unknown assailants near a mosque. The reason for the killing was not immediately clear. Mali's interim prime minister Moctar Ouane said there were two assailants. Ould Sidati was the rotating president of the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), a mostly ethnic Tuareg alliance that rose up against the central government in 2012. "We have just lost our president ... who was assassinated this morning in Bamako," CMA spokesman Almou Ag Mohamed said on social media. Ouane and the UN's envoy in Mali both expressed shock at the killing and paid tribute to Ould Sidati's role in the peace process.