Mali aid offers pour in
2013-01-23 11:40
Diabaly - Mali's army chief on Tuesday said his French-backed
forces could reclaim the northern towns of Gao and fabled Timbuktu from
Islamists in a month, as more offers of aid poured in for the offensive.
French planes bombed a major base of the al-Qaeda in Islamic
Maghreb (Aqim) near Timbuktu, a defence ministry official said on condition of
anonymity, as officials said a mansion belonging to Libyan former strongman Muammar
Gaddafi was destroyed.
"In the course of the last French bombings, several
jihadists died and the residence of Gaddafi which had become the headquarters
of the Islamists was destroyed," a Malian security official said, adding
there were no civilian deaths.
A local resident said: "Three or four other areas
housing Islamists were also bombed," adding that three houses "used
by drug-traffickers were targeted".
International moves to aid the operations revved up with the
US military airlifting French troops and equipment from France into Mali.
"We expect the mission to last for the next several
days," an Africom spokesperson, Chuck Prichard, told AFP in Germany.
The Pentagon said the United States would not demand payment
from France for the use of US transport planes.
The US Air Force deployed a small team of airmen on the
ground and C-17 cargo planes for five flights to Mali since Monday, ferrying
140 tons of supplies and 80 French troops, Pentagon officials said.
"We know from our bilateral contacts that the United
States is going to be a substantial contributor," France's UN ambassador
Gerard Araud said.
Humanitarian aid
He added that the European Union would help to pay the
salaries of the African force and with humanitarian aid.
Italy said it would send three planes to Mali to help
support French and Malian troops for a two- to three-month logistical mission.
They include two C-130 transport planes and a Boeing 767.
And Britain said it would consider "very
positively" any further French requests for logistical and surveillance
support.
Britain has already loaned two C-17 transport planes to
France and pledged to provide troops to a European Union mission to train the
Malian army, but is not considering sending its own forces to the west African
country.
The UN chief Ban Ki-moon hailed France's
"courageous" intervention but expressed fears over the safety of
humanitarian workers and UN employees on the ground.
A UN-backed proposed African force in Mali needed
"critical logistical support" to help it take over from French
forces.
Ivory Coast said it would deploy 500 soldiers for the
African force and
Togo has boosted its troop allotment to at least 733 from
500 pledged earlier.
Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Spain
and the United Arab Emirates are also providing transport planes or helicopters
required to help move the African and French troops around Mali's vast
expanses.
Destructive rampage
France began its military operation on 11 January and has said
it could deploy upwards of 2 500 troops which would eventually hand over
control to the African force.
General Ibrahima Dahirou Dembele said the French-backed army
was forging ahead for "the total liberation of northern Mali", in an
interview with French radio station RFI, a day after it rolled into two central
towns held by Islamists.
"If the support remains consistent, it won't take more
than a month to free Gao and Timbuktu," he said, referring to two of three
main cities along with Kidal, in the vast, semi-arid north which has been
occupied for 10 months.
The al-Qaeda-linked Islamists have subjected these towns to
strict sharia law, whipping smokers and drinkers, banning music, forcing women
to wear veils and long robes, amputating the limbs of thieves and stoning
adulterers to death.
A fabled caravan town on the edge of the Sahara desert,
Timbuktu was for centuries a key centre of Islamic learning and has become a
byword for exotic remoteness in the Western imagination.
Today it is a battlefield, overrun by Islamist militants who
have been razing its world-heritage religious sites in a destructive rampage
that the UN cultural agency has deplored as "tragic".
General Dembele said troops from Niger and Chad were
expected to come through Niger, which borders Mali on the east, and head to
Gao, a key Islamist stronghold which has been pounded by French airstrikes.
A major boost to the regional force is a pledge by Mali's
neighbour Chad to deploy 2 000 soldiers there, which would bring the number of
African soldiers to around 6,000.
The Chadian troops are battle-hardened, having quelled
rebellions at home and in nearby countries such as the Central African
Republic.
Rising fears
Egypt on Monday broke ranks with the international community
saying the French-led intervention would fuel regional conflict but the head of
Mali's chief Muslim group came out in strong support of the drive.
Mahmoud Dicko said that the intervention was "not an
aggression against Islam", adding: "It was France that came to the
rescue of a people in distress who had been abandoned by the Muslim countries".
Malian Justice Minister Malick Coulibaly told the UN Human
Rights Council in Geneva that advances his country had made in the field of
human rights were being undermined by the conflict raging across the country.
"Mali is ... confronted with a conflict situation that
is [impacting] and permanently endangering the advances made," he said.
"Assistance is needed to solidify these advances,"
he said, calling for solidarity from the international community.
France swept to Mali's aid 10 months after it lost over half
its territory to the Islamists, amid rising fears that the vast northern half
of the country could become a new Afghanistan-like haven for al-Qaeda.
