Another neo-colonialism rule. The so called attack on terrorists groups threatening the territorial intergrity of Mali is just a false reason to impose French rule in Mali. The Lybian attack had three objectives-market the rafale to Scatland and Brazil; push the Chinese out of Lybia and accaparate the Lybian oil and natural resources. Regarding Mali, it is again to market the Rafale and Mirage 2000 but also to have an influence on Mali. Any natural reources like oil resources, now will be given to the French companies to exploit. This is how the Western Racist World proceed. Impose a pro Western Government in the African countries through military intervention to throw out any non pro-Western Government or Leaders, so that all resources are handed over to Western countries. While China participate in tender to buy natural resources, the Western countries steal same from these African countries through military intervention. Lybia is now forced to hand over all its oil production to the French, UK and US companies without tender procedures and excluding China, Russia and even India which is so quick to applaud a Rafale performance while it has nothing to gain except spending money on purchasing Western weaponry. The military intervention will cost billions to an already debt ridden France, which is also caught in a deep economic recession. So why such military intervention, it is not because to protect civilians from terrorists otherwise France would have also intervened in Syria. Such intervention has a hidden agenda, to accaparate Mali's natural reources and imposes a pro-French Government in all African countries and push not only China but also India away from Africa. Thats the reality, so there is nothing to applaud here, Scatlanders are applauding like stupids and idiots as if there country, would gain something. Yes Rafale is performing well, just like the Mirage 2000 (and F 16, Gripen, Tornado, Eurofighter if they had participated in this shameful military intervention), India just like all emerging countries like China and Russia are going to be pushed out of Africa if this trend of Western military intervention continues in Africa.
"PARIS Mirage 2000D fighter-bombers struck Islamist targets in northern Mali on Sunday, expanding the reach of a French military intervention, and more French ground troops flew into Bamako, the capital, for what increasingly looked like the beginning of a long campaign.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the Obama administration has promised to aid the antiterrorism operation in Mali by providing logistics help, satellite intelligence and in-flight refueling for French warplanes in what he qualified as a show of total solidarity from the United States.
Le Drian, in a radio and television appearance, said that several planeloads of additional arrivals brought to 400 the number of French soldiers in Bamako to provide rear-area support and protect French citizens. Another 150, he added, have been deployed 300 miles to the north around Mopti, the main town near the line between government-controlled territory and the northern two-thirds of the country that has been ruled by Islamist militias for the past seven months.
Fears that a southward offensive by several Islamist militias was about to overrun Mopti led President Francois Hollande to order the unilateral French military intervention beginning Friday. Le Drian said the Islamist offensive, which was halted by French helicopter gunship raids and Mirage bombing runs, could have punched all the way to Bamako if Hollande had not acted swiftly, implying that Malian army defenses had collapsed.
The minister said more French troops and airplanes are on the way, including advanced Rafale fighter-bombers from bases in France. He did not say where they would be based in Africa. Mirage aircraft currently involved in the operation have been flying from nearby French bases, including one in NDjamena, the capital of Chad, but some helicopters and other aircraft have been flying from a Malian air base at Sevare.
There are raids all the time, Le Drian said.
Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based watchdog organization, said it had documented the killing of 10 civilians, including three children, in the French bombing Friday and Saturday around the disputed town of Konna, just north of Mopti.
In addition to the French deployment, several African countries have promised to dispatch soldiers immediately to form a vanguard of what eventually will become a pan-African intervention force. With French training and other help, the African force will be assigned to restore government authority over the 250,000-square-mile region that has become a terrorist haven.
We will put into place the military deployment necessary to achieve our goals, Le Drian said. France is at war with terrorism wherever it is to be found.
French officials indicated Hollandes strategy is to support the Malian army along the separation line near Mopti, providing air support and military advisers but letting Malian soldiers do the fighting. At the same time, they said, French airplanes will continue to bomb Islamist targets farther north wherever they can be detected.
Residents reported airstrikes Sunday against Islamist positions at Gao, one of the norths main cities. A militia spokesman contacted by telephone said fighter-bombers also attacked targets at Lere near the Mauritanian border and at Douentza, news agencies reported.
The French operation is scheduled to last in this form at least until an African force can be organized and Malian army units can be trained to send a joint force to restore government authority in all of northern Mali. That could take months, specialists predicted, raising the prospect that the French involvement could be long and risky.
This is particularly true because the Malian army has been largely leaderless since a bungled coup detat in March, led by Capt. Amadou Haya Sango. Moreover, the Malian leader who appealed to Hollande for help, Dioncounda Traore, is a provisional president with limited authority; he was installed after the coup in what was supposed to be a political reorganization on the way to new elections that were never held.
The main Islamist organizations in northern Mali are several branches of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Algerian-based group that long has thrived in the region on hostage-taking and cigarette trafficking; Ansar al-Dine, a Tuareg militia closely allied with AQIM, and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, an AQIM breakaway group.
The Azawad National Liberation Movement, another armed Tuareg group, drove Malian army forces out of the northern stretches of the country last April, exploiting the military coup that left the army command in disarray and the country without civilian leadership. Since then, however, the Tuareg secular movement has been pushed aside by AQIM and Ansar leaders who have imposed strict Muslim law and turned the area into a terrorist sanctuary.
Tuaregs, who differ ethnically from black people who populate the southern part of the country, have long sought sometimes with arms to separate or at least gain autonomy from the black-run government. Against that background, the plans for a black African intervention force to restore Bamakos authority seemed to raise the danger of long-term strife even if the AQIM and other terrorist leaders are forced to retreat into more remote areas.
A senior French security official recently acknowledged that the success of a foreign intervention in some measure depends on efforts by France and others to provide enough aid to the Azawad National Liberation Movement to persuade it to combat the Islamist militias alongside the Malian army and its African backers. So far, he said, that has not been achieved.
French military intervention in Mali expands - The Washington Post
"PARIS Mirage 2000D fighter-bombers struck Islamist targets in northern Mali on Sunday, expanding the reach of a French military intervention, and more French ground troops flew into Bamako, the capital, for what increasingly looked like the beginning of a long campaign.
French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the Obama administration has promised to aid the antiterrorism operation in Mali by providing logistics help, satellite intelligence and in-flight refueling for French warplanes in what he qualified as a show of total solidarity from the United States.
Le Drian, in a radio and television appearance, said that several planeloads of additional arrivals brought to 400 the number of French soldiers in Bamako to provide rear-area support and protect French citizens. Another 150, he added, have been deployed 300 miles to the north around Mopti, the main town near the line between government-controlled territory and the northern two-thirds of the country that has been ruled by Islamist militias for the past seven months.
Fears that a southward offensive by several Islamist militias was about to overrun Mopti led President Francois Hollande to order the unilateral French military intervention beginning Friday. Le Drian said the Islamist offensive, which was halted by French helicopter gunship raids and Mirage bombing runs, could have punched all the way to Bamako if Hollande had not acted swiftly, implying that Malian army defenses had collapsed.
The minister said more French troops and airplanes are on the way, including advanced Rafale fighter-bombers from bases in France. He did not say where they would be based in Africa. Mirage aircraft currently involved in the operation have been flying from nearby French bases, including one in NDjamena, the capital of Chad, but some helicopters and other aircraft have been flying from a Malian air base at Sevare.
There are raids all the time, Le Drian said.
Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based watchdog organization, said it had documented the killing of 10 civilians, including three children, in the French bombing Friday and Saturday around the disputed town of Konna, just north of Mopti.
In addition to the French deployment, several African countries have promised to dispatch soldiers immediately to form a vanguard of what eventually will become a pan-African intervention force. With French training and other help, the African force will be assigned to restore government authority over the 250,000-square-mile region that has become a terrorist haven.
We will put into place the military deployment necessary to achieve our goals, Le Drian said. France is at war with terrorism wherever it is to be found.
French officials indicated Hollandes strategy is to support the Malian army along the separation line near Mopti, providing air support and military advisers but letting Malian soldiers do the fighting. At the same time, they said, French airplanes will continue to bomb Islamist targets farther north wherever they can be detected.
Residents reported airstrikes Sunday against Islamist positions at Gao, one of the norths main cities. A militia spokesman contacted by telephone said fighter-bombers also attacked targets at Lere near the Mauritanian border and at Douentza, news agencies reported.
The French operation is scheduled to last in this form at least until an African force can be organized and Malian army units can be trained to send a joint force to restore government authority in all of northern Mali. That could take months, specialists predicted, raising the prospect that the French involvement could be long and risky.
This is particularly true because the Malian army has been largely leaderless since a bungled coup detat in March, led by Capt. Amadou Haya Sango. Moreover, the Malian leader who appealed to Hollande for help, Dioncounda Traore, is a provisional president with limited authority; he was installed after the coup in what was supposed to be a political reorganization on the way to new elections that were never held.
The main Islamist organizations in northern Mali are several branches of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), an Algerian-based group that long has thrived in the region on hostage-taking and cigarette trafficking; Ansar al-Dine, a Tuareg militia closely allied with AQIM, and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, an AQIM breakaway group.
The Azawad National Liberation Movement, another armed Tuareg group, drove Malian army forces out of the northern stretches of the country last April, exploiting the military coup that left the army command in disarray and the country without civilian leadership. Since then, however, the Tuareg secular movement has been pushed aside by AQIM and Ansar leaders who have imposed strict Muslim law and turned the area into a terrorist sanctuary.
Tuaregs, who differ ethnically from black people who populate the southern part of the country, have long sought sometimes with arms to separate or at least gain autonomy from the black-run government. Against that background, the plans for a black African intervention force to restore Bamakos authority seemed to raise the danger of long-term strife even if the AQIM and other terrorist leaders are forced to retreat into more remote areas.
A senior French security official recently acknowledged that the success of a foreign intervention in some measure depends on efforts by France and others to provide enough aid to the Azawad National Liberation Movement to persuade it to combat the Islamist militias alongside the Malian army and its African backers. So far, he said, that has not been achieved.
French military intervention in Mali expands - The Washington Post
