Mali neighbours send troops to help French intervention

African states agree to send soldiers following French military intervention against Islamist rebels holding Mali's north

guardian.co.uk, Associated Press in Bamako, Sunday 13 January 2013

French troops board a transport plane in N'Djamena, Chad, bound for Mali.
Photograph: Handout/REUTERS

Troops from Mali's neighbours are expected to join hundreds of French soldiers in the battle to push back Islamist extremists holding Mali's north, a fight that in its first two days has left at least 11 civilians dead, including three children who threw themselves into a river and drowned trying to avoid the bombs.

Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Nigeria agreed on Saturday to send soldiers, a day after France authorised air strikes, dispatching fighter jets from neighbouring Chad and bombing rebel positions north of Mopti, the last Malian government-controlled town in the north.

State television announced that the African troops, including up to 500 each from Burkina Faso and Niger, are expected to start arriving on Sunday. Britain has offered the use of its transport planes to help bring in the soldiers. 

The African soldiers will work alongside French special forces, including a contingent that arrived on Saturday in Bamako to secure the capital against retaliatory attacks by the al-Qaida-linked rebel groups occupying Mali's north. National television broadcast footage of the French troops walking single-file out of the Bamako airport on Saturday, weapons strapped to their bodies. Some carried them like skis, against their shoulder.

The French defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said on Sunday that France now has more than 400 troops in Bamako, mainly to ensure the safety of French citizens and also to send a signal to the extremists.

"We will strengthen our operation depending on the situation," he said on a political talk show with itele and Europe 1 radio. Le Drian said that Rafale fighter jets will be part of the operation and that technical support will be arriving soon.

He said that France has international support and "the Americans seconded us" with intelligence and logistical support, though he did not elaborate.

Storage hangars and "sensitive sites" were among targets destroyed so far and the Islamists lost a "significant number" in the fighting, Le Drian said. "The intervention is still in progress and we will continue" as long as needed.

The military operation began on Friday, after the fall of Konna on Thursday to the rebel groups. Konna is only 30 miles north of the government's line of control, which begins at Mopti, home to the largest concentration of Malian troops in the country.

The UNhad cautioned that a military intervention needed to be properly planned, and outlined a step-by-step process that diplomats said would delay the operation until at least September of this year.

However, the rebels' decision to push south, and the swift fall of Konna, changed everything. After an appeal for help from Mali's president, the French president, François Hollande, sent in Mirage jets and combat helicopters, pounding rebel convoys and destroying a militant base. Footage of the jets showed the triangle-shaped aircrafts screaming across the sky over northern Mali. Le Monde reported that the jets dropped at least two, 250kg (550lb) bombs on militant targets.

The human toll has not yet been calculated, but a communique read on state television late Saturday said that at least 11 Malians were killed in Konna.

Sory Diakite, the mayor of Konna, says the dead included children who drowned after they threw themselves into a river in an effort to escape the bombs.

"Others were killed inside their courtyards, or outside their homes. People were trying to flee to find refuge. Some drowned in the river. At least three children threw themselves in the river. They were trying to swim to the other side. And there has been significant infrastructure damage," said the mayor, who fled the town with his family and is now in Bamako.

Human rights groups have warned that any military intervention will exact a humanitarian price. Mali, and the international community, found itself in a Catch-22 because every passing week that any intervention was delayed allowed the rebels to dig in and prepare for war. The rebels occupied Mali's northern half, an area larger than Afghanistan, amid the chaos after a coup in Mali's capital last March.

With no clear leader at the head of the country, Mali's military simply gave up when the rebels arrived, retreating hundreds of miles to the south without a fight. In the nine months since then, the extremists have imposed an austere and severe form of Islam – those who disobey their rules are beaten with whips and camel switches. Public amputations of the hands of thieves have become a regular spectacle.

They have also used their nine-month siege of the north to dig in, creating elaborate defences, including tunnels and ramparts using construction equipment abandoned by fleeing construction crews.

As well as civilians, a French pilot was killed after Islamists downed his combat helicopter, a sign perhaps of how dangerous the terrain has become even for trained, special forces.