France airstrike blood in Mali

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

OPERATION WOLVERINE/MALI

French Helicopter Pilot First Casualty

PARIS--The French Minister of Defence, Jean-Yves Le Drian, announced Saturday, January 12, that French units were deployed to Bamako, Mali. "Order was given to deploy first French units in Bamako since yesterday [Friday] night to contribute to the protection of Bamako and to ensure the safety of our citizens. Their building is underway, and the device should quickly have multiple companies. So these are a few hundred French soldiers who are engaged, "said the minister.

Witnesses joined Saturday said they saw "dozens of bodies" Islamists after clashes between the army and the jihadists, who finally took control


French Lt. Damien Boiteux

The Minister confirmed that a French soldier was fatally wounded during a helicopter raid "against terrorist column" pointing to two cities in the southern part of Mali, Mopti and Sévaré, after taking Konna Friday. American Dessources indicated Friday that French combat helicopter were killed in the fighting.
The raid was conducted "to 16 hours" and "support the Malian army has destroyed several units" terrorists "stopped their progress," said Mr Le Drian stating that "in this intense fighting, the One of our pilots (...) was mortally wounded. " "There is the lieutenant of the 4th Regiment Damien Boiteux helicopter gunships (RHC) Pau who was evacuated from the nearest medical facility before succumbing to his injuries," said the Minister in paying tribute to his memory. According to the Ministry of Defence, he was killed by small arms fire a fighter Islamist while he was in a Gazelle helicopter. The Prime Minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, expressed "great emotion" after the death of Lieutenant French and hailed "the unwavering courage" French military working alongside Malian armed forces.


The President François Hollande expressed in a connected by a "deep emotion" and sent to the pilot's family and relatives "sincere condolences". "His work helped stop the advance of ground forces to Mopti and will remain in our memories," he said. Mr. Holland also praised "the courage and dedication of our soldiers fighting alongside Malian forces against terrorist movements." The president has decided to cancel Saturday's trip to Marseille because of the situation in Mali, a defense council which was convened at 3:00 p.m. at the Elysée.
Mr. Holland was also in the morning a new telephone contact with the Chairman of ECOWAS, Alassane Ouattara, who confirmed that the means of the Economic Community of West Africa would be mobilized as soon as possible to intervene in Mali. Ouattara also thanked the Head of State for the military involvement of France in Mali. Then shows the Elysee, the president of Niger Mahamadou Issoufou called Mr. Holland to confirm the commitment of troops next.
The French operation was named "Wolverine", the name of a small feline desert, said Admiral Edouard Guillaud, Chief of Defence Staff. He said there was a command to "tactical level", based in Mali, and a command "strategic in Paris, alongside the Minister of Defence and the President of the Republic." "This is a French operation," he said when asked about the presence of German soldiers.
Jean-Marc Ayrault said Saturday the need for the intervention of the French army in Mali "to stop the terrorist threat," recalling that he would inform Parliament in accordance with the Constitution and receive on Monday Presidents of the Assembly and Senate. In a brief televised address from Matignon, the Prime Minister said, following the green light given by François Hollande this intervention, and that France wanted to "help stop the threat of terrorism, which threatens not only Mali and Africa but also threatens France and Europe. " "Under the Constitution, Article 35 led the government to inform within three days in Parliament this type of intervention," said the head of government.

France airstrikes in Mali repel Al Qaeda-linked militants

French forces push back the Ansar Dine militia from the city of Konna. A West African alliance promises to immediately deploy troops to Mali.


By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times
January 12, 2013, 3:40 p.m.



JOHANNESBURG, South Africa — French airstrikes in Mali turned back Al Qaeda-linked militants who recently began moving south after seizing a vast northern desert region of the West African nation last year, French officials said Saturday.

French forces drove the Ansar Dine militia from the city of Konna after deploying warplanes and hundreds of troops on Friday to Mali, its former colony, the officials said. A French helicopter was downed in the operation and its pilot, Danien Boiteux, was killed.

An alliance of West African nations, which had spent months planning a long-delayed operation to fight Ansar Dine, responded to the French intervention by promising Saturday to immediately deploy troops to Mali.

The U.N. Security Council last year agreed to the intervention by the alliance, known as ECOWAS. But months dragged on with no action, as Ansar Dine tightened its grip in the north and Western nations grew increasingly alarmed at the prospect of a terrorist haven at Europe's back door.

The French intervention followed a request from the Malian government to help its ill-equipped forces fighting the militants, who were advancing toward Mopti, a major town where government troops are based, and potentially threatening the capital, Bamako.

"Already, thanks to the courage of our soldiers, a quick stop and heavy losses have been inflicted on our adversaries," French President Francois Hollande said Saturday in Paris. "But our mission is not at an end. I have made sure that the military presence in Bamako has been reinforced to protect our citizens."

"The threat is a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe," French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters.

French warplanes and helicopters attacked the militias, dropping bombs and launching rockets in an operation that French military officials said also wiped out a major Ansar Dine base near Konna.

Hollande announced a tightening of French domestic security and said the Mali operation would last as long as necessary. He said brutal terrorist groups, drug traffickers and extremists threatened everyone.

Mali, long seen as a stable democracy in a volatile region, was split in two last year when Tuareg rebels who had fled Libya after the fall of Moammar Kadafi seized the major northern towns of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.

The Tuareg fighters were swiftly outflanked by Al Qaeda-linked militants who imposed a severe form of Islamic law in the north, amputating convicted thieves' limbs, stoning those accused of adultery and destroying ancient World Heritage monuments such as mausoleums in Timbuktu.

France has been playing a more interventionist role in Africa, declaring that it would fight terrorism anywhere on the continent. On Saturday, French forces also launched a raid in Somalia to rescue a French secret service agent held by Islamist militants since 2009; the agent and a French soldier died in the rescue attempt, as did at least 17 militants.

France has about 6,000 citizens in Mali, and numerous French have been kidnapped with the rise of militant groups in the Sahel region, including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Eight French are still being held hostage.

France sees Mali as a particular concern because human traffickers and drug smugglers have been able to cross the region's porous borders and get to Europe without difficulty. The fear is that terrorists based in northern Mali could use the same routes to cross into Europe and launch devastating attacks.

Kadre Desire Ouedraogo, chairman of the ECOWAS commission, said Saturday that the regional group had decided to swiftly send troops into Mali because of the urgency of the situation. However, the alliance did not confirm how many troops would be sent or when they would arrive.

Ansar Dine threatened to target French citizens in retaliation for the French military operation.

"There are consequences, not only for French hostages, but also for all French citizens wherever they find themselves in the Muslim world," said Ansar Dine spokesman Sanda Ould Boumama, according to Reuters news service. "We are going to continue resisting and defend ourselves. We are ready to die fighting."

Malian military spokesman Diarran Kone said the army was combing Konna to ensure no militants remained, the Associated Press reported.

"We are doing sweeps of the city to find any hidden Islamist extremist elements," Kone said. "The full recovery of the city is too early to determine as we do not yet control the city, and we remain vigilant."

[e-mail]

Special correspondent Kim Willsher in Paris contributed to this report.


Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

KONNA, MALI--

The Malian army, supported by French forces took full control of the city of Konna (center) on Saturday after violent clashes that "a hundred deaths" in the ranks of Islamist fighters from the North, said Staff Mali. French President François Hollande, warmly congratulated by his peers in West Africa and reinforced by Washington, confirmed Friday the French military engagement in Mali Bamako requested by "aggression against terrorist elements, including the world world knows the brutality and fanaticism. " "We have dozens of deaths, even a hundred deaths among Islamists Konna. We control the city completely," he told AFP Fane Ousmane Lieutenant in Mopti (center), marking the boundary region between the north and south.

A regional security source reported as "at least 46 Islamist" killed, while a resident Konna said he "saw dozens of bodies" of Arab men wearing tunics and turbans. According to the Malian army, the "last pockets of resistance" against were cleaned after the successful attack to reclaim the city and eliminate the offensive jihad. The French Minister of Defence, Jean-Yves Le Drian, announced Saturday that a French officer was fatally injured in a helicopter raid "against a terrorist column" heading Friday to two cities in the southern part of Mali. The raid Friday "has destroyed several terrorist units" and "stopped their progress," said Mr Le Drian. While the military situation was frozen, fighting had resumed this week, some 1,200 Islamist fighters seizing Konna Thursday and threatened to continue their offensive south. Located more than 700 km from Bamako, Thursday Konna fell into the hands of jihadists who occupy more than nine months from northern Mali.


The vast desert region since April 2012 is a sanctuary for Islamist groups, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) Ansar Dine and Mujao (Movement for the uniqueness and jihad in West Africa), which ousted the Touareg independence. Attack against the Franco-Malian part Sévaré town 70 km south of Konna, with the largest airport in the region of Mopti, which had landed Thursday French military elements.


Hollande frontline


Following the President of the African Union, Benin Thomas Boni Yayi, President of Mali Acting Dioncounda Traoré thanked François Hollande for Saturday launched Operation called "Wolverine" and made with him a "specific point on operations, "said the Elysee. Traore has postponed his visit to Paris originally scheduled Wednesday. For several months, the West Africa has proposed sending with the endorsement of the United Nations, African armed forces of more than 3,300 men, European countries, including France, the former colonial power, promised to help logistically for the reconquest of northern Mali.

The Burkina Faso on Saturday announced the deployment of a battalion of "500 men", and Niger has confirmed a troops. In Bamako, the night was calm and people have the French flag on their car to approve the intervention of France. Washington, who said "share the goal of France to withdraw their sanctuary to terrorists in the region," he plans to provide support "logistics", in-flight refueling and surveillance drones, said a senior official U.S.. Paris Friday asked the Security Council of the UN accelerating the implementation of resolution 2085, which allows including the deployment of the international force in support of Mali (Misma).

[zarahan]

Is the Islamic milita some thousand miles distant in impoverished Mali really that much of a "threat" to France, or is it a case of French investments in Mali?

[anansi]

Jan 13, 2013 0:05:28 GMT -5 zarahan said:

Is the Islamic milita some thousand miles distant in impoverished Mali really that much of a "threat" to France, or is it a case of French investments in Mali?

Well we knew it was coming sooner or later but is it a threat to French peace?? an argument could be made that Al-Qeada/Taliban threat to the USA pre 911 is 7414.2 miles. or 11931.99 kilometers but if that's how they can sell it to their public Iam ok with that,I have read in dismay last year that the Malian army refused help from Ecowas forces to stem the tide,which delayed action,only when they moved south wards did they finally pushed the panick button,but that was then this is now and while the involvment of the French or any western power is sure to leave a bad taste in the mouth of many,those fanatical religious limb chopping vandals have got to go and if it took the French to lite a fire under under the behinds of those in the region then so be it.

[Tukuler al~Takruri]

Jan 13, 2013 2:43:02 GMT -5 anansi said:

Jan 13, 2013 0:05:28 GMT -5 zarahan said:

Is the Islamic milita some thousand miles distant in impoverished Mali really that much of a "threat" to France, or is it a case of French investments in Mali?

Well we knew it was coming sooner or later but is it a threat to French peace?? an argument could be made that Al-Qeada/Taliban threat to the USA pre 911 is 7414.2 miles. or 11931.99 kilometers but if that's how they can sell it to their public Iam ok with that,I have read in dismay last year that the Malian army refused help from Ecowas forces to stem the tide,which delayed action,only when they moved south wards did they finally pushed the panick button,but that was then this is now and while the involvment of the French or any western power is sure to leave a bad taste in the mouth of many,[glow=red,2,300]those fanatical religious limb chopping vandals have got to go and if it took the French to lite a fire under under the behinds of those in the region then so be it[/glow].

[/size][/quote]

Selah

[anansi]

MARKALA, Mali/DAKAR (Reuters) - A split emerged on Thursday in the alliance of Islamist militant groups occupying northern Mali as French and African troops prepared a major ground offensive aimed at driving al Qaeda and its allies from their safe haven in the Sahara.

A senior negotiator from the Ansar Dine rebels who helped seize the north from Mali's government last year said he was now part of a faction that wanted talks and rejected the group's alliance with al Qaeda's North African franchise AQIM.

It was unclear how many fighters had joined the new Islamic Movement of Azawad (MIA) faction. But the announcement will encourage international negotiators who have long sought to prise apart the Islamist alliance, seen as a major threat by Washington and other Western and regional powers.

"There has to be a ceasefire so there can be talks," Alghabass Ag Intallah, a member of the Tuareg tribe, told Reuters from the Ansar Dine stronghold of Kidal in northeast Mali. The new MIA would focus its efforts on seeking autonomy for the northern homeland of the desert Tuaregs, he said.

For nearly two weeks, French aircraft have been bombarding Islamist rebel positions, vehicles and stores in the center and north of Mali as a ground force of African troops assembles to launch a U.N.-backed military intervention against the rebels.

The strikes halted a rebel advance further south. French and Malian ground troops have also retaken several towns and have been mopping up after the insurgents avoided a head-on fight, abandoning vehicles and slipping away into the bush.

On Thursday, a Reuters correspondent saw around 160 troops from Burkina Faso deployed in the dusty Malian town of Markala - the first West African troops to link up with French and Malian forces.

REPORTS OF REPRISAL KILLINGS

News of the French and African advances have been overshadowed by allegations from residents and rights groups that Malian government soldiers have executed Tuaregs and Arabs accused of collaborating with the rebels.

Mali's army has denied the allegations and the government ordered the armed forces to respect human rights.

But the reports of killings of lighter-skinned Tuaregs and Arabs by Mali's mostly black army has raised the risk that the internationally-backed intervention against the Islamist fighters in the north could trigger an ethnic bloodbath.

"These people took up arms against us, our colleagues were killed ... I no longer have any Tuareg friends," one Malian soldier, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

Outside Diabaly, a town of mud-brick huts amid mango trees surrounded by irrigation canals 350 km (220 miles) north of the capital Bamako, Malian army soldiers captured a group of suspected Islamists found hiding in a local house, said a Malian officer, Captain Samasa, who only gave his first name.

The captives were taken away in a truck, witnesses said.

AU SEEKS CHINESE SUPPORT

Diplomats gave the news of the rebel split a guarded welcome. "It is not surprising that there could still be significant rifts between what some call the military faction and the political faction," said a U.S. official, who asked not to be named.

The Islamist alliance in the north holds the major towns of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal. It groups al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM, Malian militant group Ansar Dine and AQIM splinter MUJWA, and the numbers of its fighters are estimated at roughly 3,000.

Fears that it could pose a threat to African neighbors and Western powers increased sharply last week when al Qaeda-linked Islamist guerrillas opposing the French-led military intervention in Mali briefly seized a gas plant in neighboring Algeria. At least 37 foreign hostages were killed in the incident which ended when Algerian forces stormed the plant.

Reflecting the wider security worries about reprisals, France has ordered special forces to protect uranium sites run by state-owned French company Areva in Mali's neighbor Niger, which supplies uranium for the French nuclear power industry.

Military experts say a fast, efficient deployment of the African ground force, expected to eventually number more than 5,000, is essential to sustain the momentum of the French operations in Mali. The operation will be high on the agenda of an African Union summit in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa this weekend.

Most of the African troops for the Mali intervention are coming from member countries of the West African regional grouping ECOWAS, such as Benin, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo and Niger. But the deployment also includes soldiers from Chad who are experienced in desert warfare.

El-Ghassim Wane, director of the AU's Peace and Security Council, said Burundi was also offering troops.

But serious questions have arisen over whether the African force being deployed has the weapons, equipment and training needed to maintain a sustained campaign against the rebels in a desert and mountain battleground the size of Texas.

"It's a process that unfortunately takes a bit of time> Its never as easy as anyone would like it to be. But the political will is there, the commitment is there," Wane said.

International donors are due to meet in Addis Ababa on January 29 to discuss the African military operation in Mali, and France said they would be asked to provide about 340 million euros ($452 million).

Wane said that besides the West, the AU was also looking for financial and material support from China for the Mali operation. China was already backing an African peacekeeping operation in Somalia, he added.

(Additional reporting by John Irish, Geert de Clercq, Muriel Boselli and Michel Rose in Paris, Aaron Maasho and Richard Lough in Addis Ababa; Writing by Pascal Fletcher and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
news.yahoo.com/burkinabe-troops-join-french-led-push-against-mali-102019875.html

[maiherpra]

It really is puzzling to me why everyone is so uncritical of French intervention in Mali. Even intellectuals who write do eloquently about antiimperialism support it such as Wold Soyinka in Nigeria. Apparently imperialism is something they write about in books but are not able to recognise in real life. Boubacar Boris Diop has an article in the Guardian." French Intervention will cost Mali its Independence ." It is well worth reading.

[anansi]

Feb 11, 2013 7:45:51 GMT -5 maiherpra said:

It really is puzzling to me why everyone is so uncritical of French intervention in Mali. Even intellectuals who write do eloquently about antiimperialism support it such as Wold Soyinka in Nigeria. Apparently imperialism is something they write about in books but are not able to recognise in real life. Boubacar Boris Diop has an article in the Guardian." French Intervention will cost Mali its Independence ." It is well worth reading.

There will be time to critize later,the reality was that Ansar Dine did not stop at Timbuctu,and I wished to heck that the African powers in the region would have acted sooner and more aggressivlely but like the saying goes, nature abhors a vacuum, what exactly is going to be the final price tag for outside involvement, believe me the( French are not the only presence there) it's hard to tabulate for now.one immediate price is loss of pride, but the price of having Ansar Dine and other rebel groups over run the entire country would have been Somali or Afganistan type disasters,where the powereless were being pruined like over hanging branches,saw enough of that in Liberia and Sierra Leone.