French president greeted byjubilant crowds in Mali

[ILLUMINATO]

TIMBUKTU: French President
Francois Hollande landed
Saturday in the fabled Malian
town of Timbuktu, making a
triumphant stop six days
after French forces parachuted in to liberate the
desert city from the rule of Al
Qaeda -linked militants. The French launched their
military operation to oust the
extremists three weeks ago,
and have since taken back the
three main northern cities
ruled by the rebels for about 10 months. Hollande indicated Friday that
during his visit to the former
French colony, he would
discuss the reduction of French
troop levels on the ground to
make way for an African force, led by Mali. He said his visit
aims to encourage ”the
Africans (to) come join us as
quickly as possible and to say
that we need this international
force.” Hollande, who was
accompanied by France’s
foreign and defense ministers
on Saturday, first headed to
the Djingareyber mosque in
Timbuktu. Turbaned dignitaries were
waiting to greet him at the
mosque built between 1325
and 1326. Crowds shouted
”Vive la France! Vive Francois
Hollande!” as he passed them. ”If I could have one wish, it
would be that the French army
stays in the Sahara, that they
create a base here,” said
Moustapha Ben Essayati, one of
those who showed up to greet the French delegation. ”I’m
really scared that if they leave,
the jihadists will come back. If
France had not intervened in
Konna, we would no longer be
talking about Mali,” he said. Soldiers with bomb-sniffing
dogs and at least nine armored
personnel carriers patrolled the
sand-enveloped courtyard
outside the library of ancient
manuscripts, a section of which was set on fire by the militants
when they fled the city ahead
of the advancing French troops
last week. People came out holding
French flags including some
that consisted of no more than
a watercolor of France’s red,
white and blue to greet the
president. Around 800 French forces took
part in the effort to free
Timbuktu, including hundreds
of paratroopers who
parachuted onto nearby dunes.
Extremists militants had seized the town last April, once a
popular tourist destination and
revered center of Islamic
learning. ”We have just spent 10 months
in hell. Everything that
demarcates the liberty of man
was forbidden to us. We
couldn’t smoke, we couldn’t
listen to music, we couldn’t wear the clothes we wanted to
wear,” Ben Essayati said. France now has 3,500 troops
taking part in the Mali
operation, in which they are
working with Malian soldiers
and preparing the way for an
African military contingent to help stabilise the vast country.
The French-led intervention so
far has rapidly forced the
retreat of militants out of
urban centers in Mali’s north,
which had been under the extremists’ control. Hollande said that another goal
of his visit was to push Malian
leaders to enter a political
dialogue, but he did not
elaborate. Part of the reason
the armed extremists were able to grab control of Mali’s
north was because of a coup
last March that threw the once-
peaceful country into turmoil.



French president greeted by jubilant crowds in Mali | World | DAWN.COM

 

[Hasbara Buster]

http://www.defence.pk/forums/world-affairs/232868-all-pivots-goldby-pepe-escobar.html

 

[notsuperstitious]

Wish the french had saved Nalanda!!! Seriously such obsrurantism should have been nipped in the bud.