French and Malian troops clashed with Islamist rebels near the large town of Gao, Paris said yesterday after reporting that hundreds of insurgents had been killed in a “real war” to reclaim northern Mali.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the extremist rebels, who have been driven from key strongholds that they had controlled in northern Mali for 10 months, struck back at troops with rocket fire on Tuesday.
“There were clashes yesterday around Gao,” Le Drian said on Europe 1 radio. “Once our troops, supported by Malian forces, started patrols around the towns that we have taken, they met residual jihadist groups who are still fighting.
Photo: AFP
“We will go after them. We are securing the towns we have been able to take along with the Malian forces. The jihadists around Gao were using rockets yesterday,” he said.
The confirmation of clashes comes after one of the militant groups, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), said it had attacked military positions in Gao, the largest city in the north.
“The combat isn’t over. The attacks are going to continue,” MUJAO’s Abou Dardar said.
On Tuesday, Le Drian said “several hundred” al-Qaeda-linked militants had been killed by French air strikes as well as “direct combat in the key central and northern towns of Konna and Gao.”
“This is a real war with significant losses but I’m not going to get into an accounting exercise,” he said yesterday when asked about the toll.
France’s sole fatality so far has been a helicopter pilot killed at the start of its operation 27 days ago.
Mali said 11 of its troops were killed and 60 wounded after the battle at Konna last month, but has not since released a new death toll.
The Malian army took “some prisoners, not many, who will have to answer to Malian courts and to international justice,” Le Drian said, adding that some of those detained were high-ranking militants.
Almost 4,000 French troops have been deployed in Mali since the former colonial power swept to the country’s aid on Jan. 11 as a triad of Islamist groups pushed south toward the capital. This number will not be increased.
The force matches the size of the French deployment in Afghanistan at its height in 2010.
While French President Francois Hollande has said his troops will remain in Mali for as long as they are needed, Paris is keen to step back and let some 8,000 African troops take the reigns.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told daily newspaper Metro in an interview published yesterday that soldiers would begin withdrawing “in March, if all goes as planned.”
“France has no intention of remaining in Mali for the long-term. It is up to the Africans and to the Malians themselves to guarantee the country’s security, territorial integrity and sovereignty,” he said.
While asserting that the “narco-terrorists have been stopped,” Fabius said “the risk is always present.”
The Islamists have put up little resistance, many of them fleeing to the Adrar des Ifoghas massif around Kidal, a craggy mountain landscape honeycombed with caves where they are believed to be holding seven French hostages.
Kidal, the last key bastion of the Islamists, is now under control of French forces and about 1,800 Chadian troops, but fighter jets continue to pound the region around the remote desert outpost.
Meanwhile a Tuareg separatist rebel group who kickstarted Mali’s descent into chaos with a rebellion for independence last year, said it is working with France against “terrorists” in the region.
The Azawad National Liberation Movement linked up with the radical Islamists in its bid to secure independence for the desert nomad Tuareg people. However, after being chased from their strongholds by the militants, they have voiced a willingness to negotiate since France intervened.
The group yesterday said it had retaken the town of Menaka, 80km from the Niger border.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was