Thread: French Airstrikes in Mali Deter Islamist Rebels

French Airstrikes in Mali Deter Islamist Rebels

Nicolas-Nelson Richard/ECPAD, via, AFP — Getty Images
A French fighter aircraft prepared for take off at a base in Chad on Friday.

By STEVEN ERLANGER and SCOTT SAYARE

Published: January 12, 2013

PARIS — French airstrikes in Mali appeared to halt an Islamist rebel advance, France said Saturday, as West African nations authorized what they said would be a fast deployment of troops in support of the weak Malian government.

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The New York Times

France said its airstrikes had driven rebels out of Konna.

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Nicolas-Nelson Richard/ECPAD, via, Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In a photograph released by the French Army, French air force officers briefed at a military base in Chad on Saturday.



Britain also announced late on Saturday that it would help to transport foreign troops and equipment to Mali, though would not send its own soldiers to fight.
France first intervened Friday, dropping bombs and firing rockets from helicopter gunships and jet fighters after the Islamists, who already control the north of Mali, pressed southward and overran the village of Konna, which had been the de facto line of government control. French officials said the attacks had pushed the rebels back from Konna and destroyed a rebel command center, though it was unclear if Malian forces controlled the village.

The French, who had earlier said they would not intervene militarily but only help African troops, responded to an appeal by the Malian president amid fears that the rebels would try to press on to the capital. French officials said military operations were continuing, but a spokesman for the Malian Army said Konna was “very calm” on Saturday.

The spokesman, Lt. Col. Diarran Kone, said some civilians and Malian soldiers had died in the fighting in recent days. “Zero deaths is not possible,” he said. He said the rebels, whom he called “terrorists,” suffered heavy casualties, and French officials said one French pilot had died from small-arms fire.

France, the United States and other Western nations have been increasingly anxious about the Islamists’ tightening grip on the north of the country, which they said had become a haven for militants, including those with links to Al Qaeda, who threaten not only their neighbors, but also the West. On Saturday, Adm. Édouard Guillaud, the chief of staff of the French armed forces, said that France had no plans to extend operations to those northern areas, but would expect to help African troops do the job when they arrive.

“The quicker the African mission is on the ground, the less we will need to help the Malian Army,” Admiral Guillaud said. He said that more military planes had been sent to Africa for possible use in Mali, and that Rafale fighter jets could strike from France. The French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, also said that special forces had been sent before the airstrikes to Mopti, a city near Konna that the Mali government says it cannot lose.

The French president, François Hollande, said that the current mission — named Serval, after an African wildcat — would last “as long as necessary,” but stressed that it was limited to “preparing for the deployment of an African intervention force.”

The statements appeared to indicate that once Malian and other African troops were in position to carry the fight to the north, France would like to return to its pledge not to use direct military force in the country. It remained unclear when such an offensive would begin.

France and the United States aim to assist African and Malian troops to restore government authority in the north by providing surveillance and intelligence, including the use of spy planes and drones, as well as by helping with logistics and the transport of troops and equipment.

French officials said they had asked Washington to speed up its contribution by sending drones to improve surveillance over the vast area held by the rebels. The French have only two such drones. The Pentagon is reported to be studying the French request.

On Saturday, Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said the United States was “monitoring the situation closely.” The United Nations Security Council had earlier agreed that troops from the 15-nation regional bloc known as Ecowas, the Economic Community of West African States, and European Union trainers for the Malian Army would help the fragile government in the capital, Bamako, win back the north of the country, where the Islamists have set up harsh rule under Shariah law in the nine months since the army fled the area. But both groups had been slow to deploy.

With the sudden movement of the Islamist fighters south, the Ecowas commission president, Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo, said Saturday that the group had authorized an immediate deployment of troops “in light of the urgency of the situation,” according to news reports. He did not specify how many troops would be sent to Mali. Most of the Ecowas troops are expected to come from Nigeria, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

“By Monday by the latest, the troops will be there or will have started to arrive,” said Ali Coulibaly, Ivory Coast’s African integration minister.

On Saturday, Gen. Carter F. Ham, the head of the Pentagon’s Africa Command, who has been visiting neighboring Niger, said, “My sense is that both A.Q.I.M. and the Malian armed forces are evaluating next steps right now.” He was using the acronym for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the terrorist organization’s North African arm.An official in Gao, one of the principal cities held by the Islamists, appeared to support the Malian Army’s statements about rebel casualties. “The hospital at Gao is overflowing,” said the official, who does not support the rebels. “Both morgues in the city are filled with bodies.”

Reuters quoted a resident of Gao saying scores of rebel fighters were retreating north in pickup trucks on Saturday.

A spokesman for Ansar Dine, an Islamist group, told The Associated Press that he could not confirm if the group’s fighters were still in Konna because he had been unable to phone them. The spokesman, Sanda Ould Boumama, told Reuters that French intervention in Mali would have “consequences, not only for French hostages, but also for all French citizens wherever they find themselves in the Muslim world.”

Fear of those consequences, at least for several French hostages held in North Africa, may have been a motivation for a failed French rescue mission early on Saturday in Somalia in which Mr. Hollande said the hostage died. He also said that he had asked for increased security at government buildings and public spaces in France to thwart terrorists.

Mr. Le Drian said that France needed to act in Mali to forestall the collapse of the government. “The threat is the establishment of a terrorist state within range of Europe and of France,” he said. Hundreds of French troops have been moved to Bamako to protect French citizens there.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/world/africa/french-airstrikes-push-back-islamist-rebels-in-mali.html?_r=0

Britain to send aircraft to Mali to assist French fight against rebels

Fears of terrorist reprisals in Europe rise as more than 120 reported dead after French air strikes on extremists

• Peter Beaumont, Cass Jones and Kim Willsher in Paris
• The Observer, Saturday 12 January 2013

French troops in Chad prepare to be airlifted into Mali yesterday. Photograph: Nicolas Vissac/AFP/Getty Images

Britain announced on Saturday night that it was deploying aircraft to assist French military operations against Islamist rebels in Mali as an escalation in hostilities was claimed to have killed more than 120 people.

David Cameron's offer to transport foreign troops and equipment involved Britain in a fresh conflict that could provoke terrorist reprisals against European targets. President François Hollande yesterday placed France on high alert as French planes bombarded targets in Mali.

Downing Street said two transport planes would be dispatched, but British troops would not join the French military mission to help recapture the north of Mali from al-Qaida-linked rebels acting against the country's government.

"The prime minister spoke to President Hollande this evening to discuss the deteriorating situation in Mali and how the UK can support French military assistance provided to the Malian government to contain rebel and extremist groups in the north of the country," a spokeswoman said. "Both leaders agreed that the situation in Mali poses a real threat to international security given terrorist activity there."

Earlier, Hollande warned that two days of air strikes by French war planes were only the opening salvoes in a longer campaign. "We have already held back the progress of our adversaries and inflicted heavy losses on them. But our mission is not over yet," he said.

The latest aerial bombardment led to the death of a French pilot, Damien Boiteux, and, according to a senior army officer in Mali, those of more than 100 rebel troops following fighting for the strategic town of Konna. Malian officials said 11 government soldiers had been killed in efforts to wrest the town from rebel control. Human rights groups counted 10 civilian deaths.

France insists it is undertaking military operations in Mali, which had been a stable democracy until a military coup last March paved the way for the Islamist rebellion, to provide support to a West African troop deployment backed by the United Nations.

Regional economic bloc Ecowas has accelerated its efforts to send troops to the international campaign in Mali, authorising the immediate deployment of 3,300 troops.

The United States was also said to be weighing possible involvement with the Pentagon considering options such as intelligence-sharing with France and logistics support.

For Hollande, the intervention in Mali represents the biggest foreign policy test he has faced since becoming president in May. So far he has enjoyed widespread political support at home and abroad for the African mission.

France's defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said hundreds of French troops and aircraft had been involved in fighting at three locations in the centre of Mali, including against an Islamist command centre.

A French army unit also attacked a column of rebels heading towards the town of Mopti. He insisted that France was compelled to act quickly to stop the Islamist offensive, which he said could allow "a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe".

In a separate military operation in Somalia, a French soldier was killed during a botched commando raid on an Islamist compound to rescue a captured secret service agent. The hostage is also believed to have been killed in the operation.
Another commando is listed as missing amid claims that he was injured and captured by fighters belonging to the Islamist al-Shabaab movement.

The operation had failed "despite the sacrifice of two of our soldiers and without doubt the assassination of our hostage", Hollande said. But he said it confirmed "France's determination not to give in to the blackmail of terrorists" and reiterated his commitment to pursuing military intervention in Mali.

Although officials denied there was any connection between the rescue effort and the operation launched in Mali, the French military escalation would have complicated the position of the hostage in Somalia.

The secret service agent, "Denis Allex", is believed to have been killed by his captors during a failed helicopter raid in Bula Mareer, 70 miles south of Mogadishu. The assault faltered after resistance at the compound, which was reinforced by fighters at a neighbouring training camp who heard the helicopters.

The agent and a colleague were kidnapped in 2009 while assigned to the international effort to assist Somalia's transitional government in Mogadishu. His colleague escaped a month later.

Residents of the town described explosions and gunfire while an al-Shabaab official said that the fighting began after helicopters had dropped off French commandos.

The French ministry of defence said that the decision to launch the raid to rescue Allex had been taken after there had been no progress in three years of attempted negotiations to secure his release.

"Faced with the intransigence of the terrorists, who refused for three years to engage in all negotiations, and who were holding Denis Allex in inhuman conditions, an operation was planned and set in effect," said a spokesman.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/12/mali-somalia-france-rebels-islamist-francois-hollande

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