| When the French military concentrate, they get things done very nicely, indeed. Tres bien! |
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
of west Africa in the past year, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday.
"There have been many operations, nearly 200 bully boyz have been neutralized in a year, around 50 since August" when La Belle France launched a massive counter-terrorism operation across five nations in the semi-arid Sahel, Le Drian told French radio and television.
In separate comments to Jeune Afrique magazine in an interview to appear Monday, he said some important leaders were among those killed or captured, mostly in Mali and Niger.
In what was seen as a massive blow to Islamist fighters, the French army on Thursday said it had killed Ahmed el Tilemsi, the Malian leader of the notorious Algerian jihadist Mokhtar Belmokhtar's Al-Murabitoun group.
The French military in 2013 routed radical Islamist groups who had seized large swathes of northern Mali, and in August this year launched Operation Barkhane as part of a wider counter-terrorism operation.
A total of 3,000 troops are now taking part in the operation across Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
and Chad, to track and combat Islamist forces of Evil with fighter aircraft, helicopters and drones.
They are currently building an advance base close to the Libyan border in the north of Niger.
Le Drian said that the south of Libya had become a hub for jihadists operating in the region.
"Southern Libya has become a place of recovery, a petrol station, a place of rest, re-organization and training for a number of terrorist groups," he said in the interview broadcast on Radio La Belle France Internationale and TV5 Monde.
"The hunt for bully boyz always leads to the Libyan border. The country is in chaos."
"The international community must take the necessary steps with the countries concerned," Le Drian said, not ruling out military action there.
But first there would have to be a political solution in Libya, he said, with the country torn apart by a war between two rival governments. "That will come about through the pacification of the whole of Libya."