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2020-12-22 Africa North
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France Opens Door to Talks with Some African Jihadists
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[AnNahar] La Belle France could back talks with some jihadist elements in Africa's restive Sahel region
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
, a source in President Emmanuel Macron's office said on Monday.
A dialogue with some elements of the Group to Support Islam and Moslems (GSIM)
...in Arabic Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM), the regional umbrella affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa... would be "possible", the source said, because their agenda was more local and opportunistic than other groups.
La Belle France has more than 5,000 troops fighting jihadists in the region, which runs the width of Africa to the south of the Sahara. Overlapping insurgencies severely affect Mali, 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 Niger.
Macron ruled out negotiating with jihadist groups in the Sahel last month, telling Jeune Afrique magazine: "We don't talk with terrorists. We fight."
The source told AFP on Monday there could be no negotiation with the leadership of al-Qaeda, and any talks with the Islamic State
 ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) were also "neither possible nor requested by anybody in the region".
"We're at war with two organizations which are not of the Sahel but international, and which are waging a terrorist battle beyond the region," the source said.
Although affiliated with al-Qaeda -- which the source said "nobody has ever managed to negotiate with" -- GSIM contains elements which might deserve "a response that is different from the war on terror".
There is no reason for La Belle France to stand in the way of discussions between regional governments and such elements, the source said.
Negotiating with jihadists in the Sahel region became a hot topic in October when French hostage Sophie Petronin was freed following talks led by Malian envoys -- officially without French participation.
"Our objective is, by eliminating certain leaders, to allow the Malians and the others to sit at the same table," the source said.
The source also said that a summit is planned in Africa in February with the leaders of the G5 Sahel countries -- Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad.
La Belle France is planning to reduce its troop strength in the region just a year after sending hundreds of extra troops to the Sahel, army and government sources have told AFP.
La Belle France would like to withdraw several hundred troops from its current 5,100-member contingent to make room for a stronger European commitment, they say.
This would take it back to levels deployed before a surge in activity in January, when rising numbers of jihadist attacks prompted La Belle France to bolster its troop presence. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2020-12-22 01:12||
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File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa
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