French, Malian troops hunt fleeing rebels
2013-01-28 13:35
Gao - French-backed Malian troops searched through Timbuktu
for Islamist rebel fighters on Monday after seizing the airport and surrounding
the ancient Saharan trading town in a lightning offensive against al-Qaeda-allied
fighters in northern Mali.
"We are in control of the airport in Timbuktu and
forces are in the process of securing the town," Mali's Defence Ministry spokesperson
Lieutenant Colonel Diarran Kone told Reuters.
In a commando operation similar to the one at the weekend
that seized Gao, the other large northern Malian town occupied by Islamist
insurgents since last year, French special forces backed by warplanes and
helicopters swooped on Timbuktu airport to open the way for Malian and other
African troops.
France 24 TV, reporting from Timbuktu airport, said about
200 French paratroopers had been dropped north of the Unesco World Heritage
Site city to try to stop any remaining Islamic rebels from fleeing in that
direction.
The weekend gains made at Gao and Timbuktu by the French and
Malian troops capped a two-week whirlwind intervention by France in its former
Sahel colony, which has driven al-Qaeda-allied militant fighters northwards
into the desert and mountains.
"Little by little, Mali is being liberated,"
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told France 2 television.
The French and Malians have faced no resistance so far at
Timbuktu, but Malian government soldiers face a tough job of combing through
the city's labyrinth of ancient mosques and monuments and mud-brick homes
between alleys to flush out any Islamist fighters who might still be hiding
there.
Gao residents celebrate
At Gao, more than 300km east of Timbuktu, thousands of
jubilant residents danced to music in the streets to celebrate the liberation
of the ancient town on the Niger River from the sharia-observing Islamist
rebels.
A third northern town, the Tuareg seat of Kidal, in Mali's
rugged and remote northeast, remains in rebel hands.
As the French and Malian troops push into northern Mali,
African troops from a UN-backed continental intervention force expected to number
7 700 are being flown into the country, despite delays due to logistical
problems.
France now has 2 900 armed forces personnel on the ground in
Mali. It sent them in with warplanes, helicopters and armoured vehicles after
the Malian government appealed to Paris for help when the Islamist rebels
launched an offensive south towards the capital Bamako early in January.
In the face of the two-week-old French-Malian counter
attack, the rebels have been pulling back north into the trackless desert
wastes and mountain fastnesses of the Sahara.
Military experts fear they could carry on a gruelling
hit-and-run guerrilla war against the government from there.
Fabius said the Islamist insurgents, members of a loose
alliance between al-Qaeda's North African wing Aqim and Malian and other
groups, were going into hiding but could reappear.
"The terrorist groups are carrying out a strategy of
evasion and some of them could return in the north, primarily in Mali,"
Fabius warned. He declined to say whether France would intervene again if the
militants returned.
The United States and European Union are backing the
French-led Mali operation as a strike against the threat of radical Islamist
jihadists using the West African state's inhospitable Sahara desert as a launch
pad for international attacks.
They are helping with intelligence, airlift of troops and
logistics, but do not plan to send combat troops to Mali.
