French troops underestimated the strength of Islamist rebels when they launched a failed bid to free an intelligence officer held hostage in Somalia, the French defense minister said.
One French soldier died and another went missing during the raid in which the hostage was probably killed by his captors, French Minister of Defense Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Saturday. Seventeen guerrillas were killed, he added.
The overnight operation involving about 50 troops and at least five helicopters to free the intelligence agent, with the alias of Denis Allex, was launched by elite forces from the DGSE secret service, he said.
Photo: EPA
“The resistance was stronger than expected and the heavy weaponry at the hands of the terrorists were clearly underestimated,” Le Drian said.
He said that one commando was dead and another missing and that “all indications” are that Allex was killed by his captors belonging to al-Shabaab, a Somalian Islamist group affiliated with al-Qaeda.
However, the group denied that Allex was dead and said they were also holding the missing French commando. They also threatened reprisals against France.
“In the end, it will be the French citizens who will inevitably taste the bitter consequences of their government’s devil-may-care attitude towards hostages,” an al-Shabaab statement said.
French President Francois Hollande said the operation failed “despite the sacrifice of two of our soldiers and without doubt the killing of our hostage,” but underscored France’s determination to “not give in to the blackmail of terrorists.”
Le Drian said the raid in Bulomarer, about 110km south of Mogadishu, was sparked by the “intransigence of the terrorists who have refused to negotiate for three-and-a-half years and were holding Denis Allex in inhuman conditions.”
Although the raid happened on Friday, the same day French troops launched air strikes on Islamist militants in Mali, in west Africa, the minister said the operations were not connected.
Allex is among nine French hostages in Africa, of whom at least six are held by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
A French expert involved in several hostage negotiations said: “Talks with the Somali Islamists had become impossible due to the huge ransom demanded and the marked opposition of the Americans to the payment of ransom.”
“Denis Allex became a human shield and an operation had become indispensable,” the expert said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A source close to the case, also speaking on condition of anonymity said the DGSE had been preparing a raid to free Allex for more than a year.
It had “been canceled at the last minute three or four times as we did not have a solid confirmation of his location,” the source added.
The al-Shabaab statement said the French had carried away “several” of their dead.
“The helicopters attacked a house ... upon the assumption that Denis Allex was being held at that location, but owing to a fatal intelligence blunder, the rescue mission turned disastrously wrong.
“The injured French soldier is now in the custody of the mujahidin and Allex still remains safe and far from the location of the battle,” it said.
Bulomarer resident Idris Youssouf said: “We don’t know exactly what happened because the attack took place at night, but this morning we saw several corpses, including that of a white man.”
“Three civilians were also killed in the gunfight,” he said.
Allex was kidnapped in Somalia on July 14, 2009 — Bastille Day — along with a colleague. A second hostage, named as Marc Aubriere, was free a month later, in what the French government said was an escape.
Al-Shabaab lost its main strongholds in the south and center of Somalia following an offensive launched in mid-2011 by an African Union force, but it still controls some rural areas.
Allex appeared in a video in June 2010 appealing to Paris to drop its support for the Somalian government.
He last appeared in another video in October last year looking gaunt and calling on Hollande to work for his release.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991.
France has a recent history of botched operations, including a failed joint raid with Niger forces in 2011 that left both hostages dead and another in Mali that led to the hostage’s execution.
In 2009, French commandos launched a raid to free a French family whose yacht had been hijacked by Somalian pirates. They retook the boat, but accidentally shot the father.
STEPPING UP: Diminished US polar science presence mean opportunities for the UK and other countries, although China or Russia might also fill that gap, a researcher said The UK’s flagship polar research vessel is to head to Antarctica next week to help advance dozens of climate change-linked science projects, as Western nations spearhead studies there while the US withdraws. The RRS Sir David Attenborough, a state-of-the-art ship named after the renowned British naturalist, would aid research on everything from “hunting underwater tsunamis” to tracking glacier melt and whale populations. Operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the country’s polar research institute, the 15,000-tonne icebreaker — boasting a helipad, and various laboratories and gadgetry — is pivotal to the UK’s efforts to assess climate change’s impact there. “The saying goes
Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-US tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who on Sunday called for the immediate release of the pastors. Pastor Jin Mingri (金明日), founder of Zion Church, an unofficial “house church” not sanctioned by the Chinese government, was detained at his home in the southern city of Beihai on Friday evening, said
TICKING CLOCK: A path to a budget agreement was still possible, the president’s office said, as a debate on reversing an increase of the pension age carries on French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday was racing to find a new prime minister within a two-day deadline after the resignation of outgoing French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu tipped the country deeper into political crisis. The presidency late on Wednesday said that Macron would name a new prime minister within 48 hours, indicating that the appointment would come by this evening at the latest. Lecornu told French television in an interview that he expected a new prime minister to be named — rather than early legislative elections or Macron’s resignation — to resolve the crisis. The developments were the latest twists in three tumultuous
FIRST STAGE: Hamas has agreed to release 48 Israeli hostages in exchange for 250 ‘national security prisoners’ as well as 1,700 Gazans, but has resisted calls to disarm Israel plans to destroy what remains of Hamas’ network of tunnels under Gaza, working with US approval after its hostages are freed, it said yesterday. Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said that the operation would be conducted under an “international mechanism” led by the US. “Israel’s great challenge after the hostage release phase will be the destruction of all Hamas terrorist tunnels in Gaza,” Katz said. “I have ordered the army to prepare to carry out this mission,” he added. Hamas operates a network of tunnels under Gaza, allowing its fighters to operate out of sight of Israeli reconnaissance. Some have passed under
RSS