Chad president’s son leads troops against Islamists in Mali

French withdrawing from Timbuktu

TIMBUKTU — French troops began to withdraw from Timbuktu yesterday after securing the fabled city as they ramped up their mission in another northern Mali city, searching for Islamic extremists who may be mixing among the local population. French military spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said the operation to secure Gao is still under way, nearly two weeks after French and Malian troops moved into the area. New clashes nearby raised questions about how solid a hold the French military has on the strategic area.

There is a risk of “residual presence” of terrorists mixed among the population, Burkhard said from Paris. Extremists fired rocket launchers at French troops near Gao on Tuesday.

In a sign of heightened security, authorities briefly detained three Tuareg men in Gao yesterday who were stopped after they did not have their identity papers. The men, who came from a nearby village, were in Gao because they had missed their bus to a nearby market. The mayor intervened and the men were released.

Meanwhile, French troops began to draw out of Timbuktu, after greater successes in securing the desert city.

Soldiers in fatigues could be seen pushing an artillery cannon onto the barge crossing the Niger River, located on the southern perimeter of Timbuktu. France has commandeered the river crossing, and yesterday small convoys of military vehicles were lining up, waiting for the barge, including armoured cars, trucks covered with camouflage-coloured tarps, and vehicles loaded with supplies, like bottled water.

While the population of Timbuktu is anxious, worrying that the departure of French troops will open the door for the Islamists to return, French military officials said they had fulfilled their mission here.

“We have succeeded in handing over the majority of our responsibilities to the Malian army and now she will assume our duties. But we will not leave the city of Timbuktu completely,” said Captain Franck, an official with the French operation codenamed Serval, after a sub-Saharan wildcat. He said some French forces will stay because “once we are gone, these people will come back in order to trouble the population. At the same time, we can’t stay indefinitely.”

Meanwhile, around 1,000 troops from Chad led by the president’s son advanced towards the mountains of northeast Mali yesterday to join French search-and-destroy operations hunting Islamist Jihadists. A column of 100 Chadian armoured vehicles, jeeps and supply trucks rolled out of Kidal, the Saharan town 1,200 km northeast of the capital Bamako. From Kidal, French and Chadian forces backed by French warplanes are striking Islamist hideouts in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountain range straddling the border with Algeria.

President Idriss Deby’s son, General Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno, commanded the Chadian column. He told reporters its mission was to “fight terrorism, and eradicate it from the region,” a reference to the al Qaeda-allied fighters in the mountains who are being bombarded almost daily by French aircraft.

Herald with AP, Reuters