France carried out air strikes against Islamist rebels in Mali yesterday as it began a military intervention intended to halt a drive southward by the militants who control the country’s desert north.
Western governments, particularly former colonial power France, voiced alarm after the al-Qaeda-linked rebel alliance captured the central Malian town of Konna on Thursday, a gateway towards the capital Bamako 600 kilometres further south.
President Francois Hollande said France would not stand by to watch the rebels push southward.
Paris, the leading advocate for foreign intervention in Mali, has repeatedly warned that Islamists’ seizure of the country’s north in April gave them a base to attack the West.
State of emergency
• More than two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bulwark of democracy in a part of Africa better known for turmoil – an image that unravelled in a matter of weeks after a military coup last March that paved the way for the Islamist rebellion.
• Mali is Africa’s third largest gold producer and a major cotton grower, and home to the fabled northern desert city of Timbuktu – an ancient trading hub and Unesco World Heritage site that hosted annual music festivals before the rebellion.
• Interim President Dioncounda Traore, under pressure for bolder action from Mali’s military, declared a state of emergency yesterday, a presidency official told Reuters. Traore will fly to Paris for talks with Hollande on Wednesday.
• The chief of operations for Mali’s Defence Ministry said that Nigeria and Senegal were among the other countries providing military support on the ground. Fabius said these countries had not taken part in the French operation.
• A spokesman for the Nigerian air force said planes had been deployed to Mali for a reconnaissance mission, not for combat.
• A spokesman for one of the main groups in the Islamist rebel alliance said they remained in control of Konna.
• Asked whether the rebels intended to press ahead to capture Sevare and Mopti, the Ansar Dine spokesman Sanda Ould Boumama said: “We will make that clear in the coming days.” He said French intervention was evidence of an anti-Islam bias.
• The French Foreign Ministry stepped up its security alert on Mali and parts of neighbouring Mauritania and Niger yesterday, extending its red alert – the highest level – to include Bamako. France has eight nationals in Islamist hands in the Sahara after a string of kidnappings.
•“Due to the serious deterioration in the security situation in Mali, the threat of attack or abduction is growing,” the ministry said in its travel alert.