French troops set to engage Mali militants 'in coming hours'

The head of France's armed forces confirmed that the campaign had begun against the Islamist rebels who control northern Mali. Fighting has been reported in the rebel-held town of Diabaly.

|
Andrew Winning/Reuters
A French Army Land Rover and pallets of rations are seen on a C17 cargo aircraft as it prepares to leave for Bamako in Mali from Abidjan in the Ivory Coast on Tuesday. French ground troops and Malian army forces encircled Islamist fighters in the central Malian town of Diabaly on Wednesday, military sources said, as France prepared to launch its first ground assault on the rebels.

French troops launched their first ground operation against Islamist rebels in Mali on Wednesday in a crucial action to dislodge al-Qaeda-linked fighters who have resisted six days of air strikes.

France called for international support against Islamist insurgents it says are a threat to Africa and the West and acknowledged it faced a long fight against well-equipped and determined militant fighters who seized Mali's vast desert north last year.

After Islamist threats to exact revenge for France's dramatic intervention, an al-Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for a raid on a gas field in Algeria in which seven foreigners were kidnapped and a French national killed.

A column of French armored vehicles moved into position on Tuesday at the town of Niono, 190 miles from the capital Bamako. With the Malian army securing the northern region near the Mauritanian border, Islamist fighters were encircled in the nearby town of Diabaly.

French military chief Edouard Guillaud said his ground forces were starting their campaign against the alliance of Islamist fighters, grouping al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM with Mali's home grown Ansar Dine and MUJWA militant movements.

"In the coming hours – but I cannot tell you if it's in one hour or 72 hours – yes, of course we will be fighting them directly," he told Europe 1 radio.

In Niono, a resident reported seeing French and Malian troops in armored vehicles heading toward Islamist rebel lines. Fighting was reported in Diabaly but it was not immediately clear if French ground forces were involved.

Admiral Guillaud said French military strikes were being hampered because militants were using the civilian population as a shield.

"We categorically refuse to make the civilian population take a risk. If in doubt, we will not shoot," he said. Residents who fled Diabaly confirmed the Islamists had used the towns inhabitants to protect themselves in recent days.

French fighter jets, meanwhile, struck the headquarters of the Islamic police in Niafunke, a small town on the Niger river near the ancient caravan route of Timbuktu, residents said.

Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian acknowledged that France faced a difficult operation, particularly in Western Mali where AQIM's mostly foreign fighters have camps. Mauritania has pledged to close its porous frontier to the Islamists.

"It's tough. We were aware from the beginning it would be a very difficult operation," Mr. Le Drian said.

Waiting for African troops

President François Hollande said on Tuesday French forces would remain in Mali until stability returned to the West African nation. Mr. Hollande said France hoped, however, to hand over to African forces in its former colony, "in the coming days or weeks."

Military chiefs from the West African regional bloc ECOWAS met for a second day in Bamako on Wednesday in a bid to hammer out the details of their UN-mandated deployment.

With African troops facing huge logistical and transport challenges to quickly deploy their troops, Germany promised two Transall military transport planes to fly soldiers from around the region to Bamako.

Hollande's bold intervention in Mali, which has helped to end his reputation for dithering, brings risks for eight French hostages held by AQIM in the Sahara as well as the 30,000 French citizens living across West Africa.

AQIM and Ansar Dine have vowed to take revenge for France's intervention on its interests around the globe.

In Algeria, where AQIM has its roots, militants seized five Japanese nationals, a French citizen and an Irishman from an oil facility in Ain Amenas in southern Algeria on Wednesday, local and diplomatic sources told Reuters. A French national was killed in the raid.

The field, located close to the border with Libya, is operated by a joint venture including BP, Norwegian oil firm Statoil, and Algerian state company Sonatrach.

The conflict in Mali raised concerns across mostly Muslim West Africa of a radicalization of Islam in the region. In Senegal, a traditionally moderate Islamic country, President Macky Sall warned citizens to be vigilant for attacks.

"We must be on the watch in our towns and villages because infiltrations are taking place," he said in a speech on Tuesday. "You will hear foreign preachers talking in the name of Islam. You must denounce them to authorities."

The fighting in Mali, a landlocked state at the heart of West Africa, has displaced an estimated 30,000 people. Hundreds have fled across the border into neighboring Mauritania and Niger in recent days.

"We were all afraid. Many young fighters have enrolled with them recently," said Mahamadou Abdoulaye, a truck driver who fled from the northern Gao region of Mali into Niger. "They are newly arrived, they cannot manage their weapons properly. There's fear on everybody's face."

(Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra in Bamako, Lamine Chikhi in Algiers, Alexandra Hudson in Berlin; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by David Lewis and Giles Elgood)

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to French troops set to engage Mali militants 'in coming hours'
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0116/French-troops-set-to-engage-Mali-militants-in-coming-hours
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe