“By Monday at the latest, the troops will be there or will have started to arrive,” said Ali Coulibaly, Ivory Coast’s African Integration Minister. “Things are accelerating … The reconquest of the north has already begun.” …. A spokesman for one of Mali’s rebel groups, Ansar Dine, warned that France’s intervention would have repercussions. “There are consequences, not only for French hostages, but also for all French citizens wherever they find themselves in the Muslim world,” Sanda Ould Boumama said. — Reuters
I am sure we will see France’s large Islamists population start to cause a ruckus (beheadings?) in France. The other African nations are down because they see the dangerous fascist doctrine coming to them already or soon.
France bombs Mali rebels as more troops arrive in Bamako
BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) – French fighter jets bombed Islamist rebels in Mali for a third day on Sunday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting the arrival of a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country’s north.
French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France’s dramatic intervention on Friday to bomb a convoy of heavily armed Islamist fighters sweeping southwards had stopped them from seizing Mali’s capital Bamako within days.
Western countries fear Islamists could use Mali as a base for attacks on the West, forming a link with al Qaeda militants in Yemen, Somalia and North Africa….
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A French pilot was killed on Friday when rebels in Mali shot down his helicopter.
President Francois Hollande has made it clear that France’s aim in Mali is to support the deployment of a West African mission to retake the north, endorsed by the United Nations, the European Union and the United States.
The 15-nation West African bloc ECOWAS convened a summit for Saturday in Ivory Coast to discuss the military campaign.
With Paris pressing West African nations to deploy troops quickly, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara, who holds the rotating ECOWAS chairmanship, has kick-started the operation to deploy some 3,300 African soldiers.
Ouattara was himself installed in power with French military backing in 2011 after a brief civil war triggered by former president Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to step aside after losing a late 2010 election.
“The troops will start arriving in Bamako today and tomorrow,” Ali Coulibaly, Ivory Coast’s African Integration Minister, said. “They will be convoyed to the front at Sevare.”
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Under cover from French fighter planes and attack helicopters on Friday, Malian troops drove the Islamists out of the strategic central town of Konna, which they had seized a day earlier. A senior Malian army official said more than 100 rebel fighters had been killed.
Military analysts expressed doubt, however, that this was the start of a swift operation to retake the whole of northern Mali – a harsh, sparsely populated terrain the size of France – as neither equipment nor ground troops were ready.
In Nigeria, which will lead the ECOWAS force, a military official who asked not to be identified said it would take time to train and equip the troops.