French jets hit militants’ outposts inmali desert

Timbuktu, Mali – In a new phase in the Mali conflict, French airstrikes targeted the fuel depots and desert hideouts of Islamic extremists in northern Mali today, as a military spokeswoman said that French forces plan to hand control of Timbuktu to the Malian army this week.

After taking control of the key cities of northern Mali, forcing the Islamic rebels to retreat into the desert, the French military intervention is turning away from the cities and targeting the fighters’ remote outposts to prevent them from being used as launch pads for international terrorism.

The French plan to leave Timbuktu on Friday, a spokeswoman for the armed forces said today. French soldiers took the city last week after Islamic extremists withdrew. Now the French military said it intends to to push further northeast to the strategic city of Gao.

French Mirage and Rafale planes also pounded extremist training camps as well as arms and fuel depots from Saturday night into Sunday, north of the town of Kidal and in the Tessalit region.

The French intervened in Mali on January 11 to stem the advance of the al Qaedalinked fighters, who had taken over the country’s north, enforced harsh rules on the population and plotted a terrorist attack in neighbouring Algeria. The French troops arrived when the Islamic extremists threatened to move further south.

After pushing extremists out of key northern cities, France is now pushing to hand over control of those sites to African forces from a United Nations-authorised force made up of thousands of troops from nearby countries.

In northern Mali, the price of food and fuel is rocketing as a result of the conflict, the aid organisation Oxfam warned today.