France 24, Jan 18, 2013

• French and Malian troops on Friday took Konna, a key town 700 km from Bamako.
• Mali Islamists are "well-trained and determined", French diplomat says.
• French troops in Mali now at 1,800, with eventual deployment of 2,500.
  
• US agrees to French request for help airlifting troops and equipment.
  
• 100 Togolese troops arrive in Bamako. Nigerian and Chadian forces en route.
  
• Malian army claims to have retaken "total control" of the city of Konna.
  
• France's Hollande calls war in Mali "necessary" and "legitimate".

French troops’ initial clashes with Islamist militants in Mali have shown that the desert fighters are better trained and equipped than France had anticipated before last week’s military intervention, French and other U.N. diplomats said.

The realization that the fighting could be bloodier than anticipated in the weeks—or months—ahead might make Western countries even more reluctant to get involved alongside France. French officials, however, hope it will rally their allies behind them, diplomats say.

France24's special correspondent in Mali Matthieu Mabin reports

“The cost of failure in Mali would be high for everyone, not just the people of Mali,” an African diplomat said on Thursday. Like the other diplomats, he spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military and diplomatic issues.

The seizure of dozens of hostages in neighboring Algeria, where Algerian troops launched a military operation to rescue the captives from “diehard” Islamist militants at a desert gas plant, also raises the possibility that Islamist violence could snowball beyond Mali’s borders.

The diplomats were speaking after French forces had their first encounters with Islamist fighters in recent days. The ground war appeared headed for escalation on Thursday as French troops surrounded the town of Diabaly, trapping rebels who had seized it three days ago.

“Our enemies were well-armed, well-equipped, well-trained and determined,” a senior French diplomat said.

“The first surprise was that some of them are holding the ground,” he said, adding that others had fled during six days of French air strikes aimed at halting the militants’ offensive and preventing the fall of Mali’s capital, Bamako.

French, Malian and African forces are facing off against an Islamist coalition that includes al Qaeda’s North African wing, AQIM, and the homegrown Ansar Dine and MUJWA militants. The motley mix of Tuareg rebels, Islamists and foreign jihadists has been united by the threat of foreign military intervention, which the Security Council called for last month.

Some of the militants are believed to have been trained and armed by the government of late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was ousted and killed by rebels in a 2011 civil war.

Fog of war

A number of diplomats said it was clear that the initial French assessments of the militants had underestimated their strength. It is a view that French officials do not dispute.

“They are better trained, I think, than the French had anticipated at the beginning and are fighting harder than had been anticipated,” a senior Western diplomat said.

Other envoys noted that the 2,000 promised Chadian troops, who are known for their desert-fighting expertise, have yet to arrive and it remains to be seen how they will perform.

Diplomats said that the overly optimistic assessments of the Islamists were understandable in what several envoys described as “the fog of war,” where clarity is rare and precise information and accurate intelligence are often hard to come.

The senior Western diplomat said there was nothing to suggest the French were being overwhelmed on the ground and pointed to the achievement of Paris’ initial objective, which was halting the militants’ offensive.

“They feel that they took the decisions that they had to take in the short term,” he said.

“But inevitably in these situations you never quite know what the outcome’s going to be, or what the consequences are going to be, or what the exit strategy is. But they have been successful in protecting Bamako, which could have fallen.”

Nicolas van de Walle, a professor at Cornell University, said the rebels have demonstrated “superior knowledge of this very difficult terrain, their ability to slip across foreign borders and their impressive mobility.”

French forces total 1,800 troops, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Friday, and their numbers are expected to rise to 2,500. Foreign African troops have also begun arriving.

Incorrect Algerian intelligence?

Northern Mali fell under Islamist control after a March 2012 military coup in Bamako triggered a Tuareg-led rebel offensive that seized the north and split the West African nation in two.

Last month, the U.N. Security Council approved an African-led force to help Mali’s government reclaim the north. That force is to be comprised of up to 3,300 troops, but is not expected to be deployed in the north before September.

The French and others have called for an acceleration of the force’s deployment in light of the emergency Mali is facing.

So far the entire Security Council - including the typically skeptical Russians - are supporting the French, diplomats say.

Despite that diplomatic backing, envoys say that Western nations have offered France little of the logistical support it has requested. The United States agreed to France’s request for airlift capacity for troops, and U.N. diplomats said Paris was still hoping Washington can provide drones and aerial refueling capacity.

The surprises about the Mali conflict have not been limited to the militants’ behavior on the battlefield, diplomats say.

Before the Islamists launched their offensive earlier this month and threatened to take Bamako, Algerian intelligence had concluded that elements of Ansar Dine would be open to negotiations and would not fight alongside AQIM and others.

That assessment proved incorrect.

“It was believed that there were links between Ansar Dine elements and elements of Algerian intelligence,” a diplomat told Reuters. “But those links appear to have vanished.”

Algeria’s U.N. mission did not respond to a request for comment.

The Algerians are allowing their former colonial masters, the French, to use their airspace, which U.N. diplomats say is no small matter and shows Algeria’s commitment to supporting France’s efforts in Mali.

Algeria has much at stake, given that it does not want the Islamists in Mali to retreat to its territory, where they could carry out operations like the one on Wednesday in which militants seized dozens of hostages.

(REUTERS)

• French special forces engage in combat with rebels in town of Diabaly.
  
• Rebels remain in city of Konna, contrary to reports from Malian army.
  
• Islamist rebels cut communication lines in main northern city of Gao.
  
• Hollande says war in Mali is "necessary" and "legitimate".
  
• The ICC has opened an investigation into war crimes committed in Mali since last year’s armed uprising saw northern Mali fall to rebel groups.
  

French special forces clashed with Islamist rebels in a central Malian town just 400 kilometres north of the Malian capital of Bamako on Wednesday at the start of a major ground offensive in the West African nation amid mounting fears that jihadist fighters were merging into civilian populations.

Wednesday’s ground fighting came on the sixth day of the French military intervention in Mali and centred around the town of Diabaly, which had turned into a rebel stronghold in recent days.

Reporting from Bamako, FRANCE 24’s Catherine Norris Trent said French special forces had been engaging in combat with Islamist fighters inside the town.

"GROUND FORCES ARE NOW DEPLOYED" Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, Jan. 16, 2013.

“From what we understand, Islamist fighters there have been hiding in some of the houses alongside villagers,” said Norris Trent. “So it’s more difficult for the French forces to target them without resulting in civilian casualties.”

Senior French military officials have acknowledged that the rebels could hide behind civilians. In an interview with the French RTL radio, Admiral Edouard Guillaud said militant groups have a history of taking human shields. But he stressed that France would do its utmost to avoid civilian casualties. “When in doubt, we will not fire,” he said.

Fears of civilians getting trapped in the fighting came as the International Criminal Court (ICC) launched an investigation on Wednesday into war crimes committed since an armed uprising following the March 22, 2012 coup led to the fall of northern Mali to a motley mix of rebel groups - some of them linked to al Qaeda’s North African branch, AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb).

According to ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, the investigation will focus on northern Mali, where there have been widespread reports of murder, rape, mutilation and summary executions in Islamist controlled regions over the past nine months.

Fierce fighting in western Mali

Click on map to enlarge

Meanwhile, in the first sign of a possible fallout of the Malian conflict, Islamist militants attacked and occupied a natural gas complex in neighbouring Algeria on Wednesday, holding 41 foreign nationals hostage.

According to the Mauritanian ANI news agency, which has regular direct contact with AQIM militants, a spokesman for an AQIM brigade said, "The operation was in response to the blatant interference by Algeria and the opening of its air space to French aircraft to bomb northern Mali.”

The kidnappings came as Mali’s neighbours were braced for a humanitarian and security fallout from the conflict, notably in Algeria - which shares a 1,300 kilometre border with Mali - and Mauritania, which shares a 2,200 kilometre border with western Mali.

French defense officials have acknowledged that troops have been encountering fierce resistance particularly in western Mali.

In an interview with RTL radio on Wednesday, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the Islamists groups in western Mali “are the toughest, most fanatical, better organised, more determined and well equipped. It’s going to be difficult”.

At a press conference on Tuesday night, Le Drian said that the town of Konna had not been completely recaptured from jihadists, as the Malian army had previously announced.
The fall of Konna last week prompted the French intervention, which has now entered a sixth day.

Analysts said the first ground battles would likely concentrate around Konna and Diabaly, which fell to an al Qaeda-linked Islamist group on Monday.

Hollande says ground offensive ‘both necessary and legitimate’

In recent weeks, France has been pushing hard for a deployment of a West African regional ECOWAS [Economic Community of West African States] mission in Mali.

Several neighbouring countries have pledged to take part in the mission, including Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Togo and Chad, which has said it would be sending some 2,000 troops. The regional troops are expected to start arriving later this week.

On Tuesday, France said that it had 800 soldiers deployed in Mali and would build up to a 2,500-strong force.

Amid fears that France could get bogged down in a long, messy conflict in Mali, French President François Hollande has defended the ground offensive, calling it “both necessary and legitimate”.

In an annual address to the French press on Wednesday, Hollande said France’s intervention was necessary to stop Islamists, and had the full backing of Europe and the United Nations.

“France will not be alone,” he said, addressing fears that France has been abandoned on the battlefield by Western powers.