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2021-01-03 Africa North
Mali: Targeted attack kills two French soldiers
[DW] The attack came just days after three French soldiers were killed in Mali by the al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Moslems (GSIM).

Two French soldiers were killed in northwestern Mali when their vehicle hit an improvised bomb on Saturday, according to the French presidency. A similar attack on French troops based in Mali killed three troops just days earlier.
That’d be the New Year’s Eve attack somewhere in the Hombori region.
French President Emmanuel Macron expressed grief over the deaths of Sergeant Yvonne Huynh and Brigadier Loic Risser in the Menaka region, his office said in a statement. Another soldier was maimed in the blast, it added.

Huynh, 33, was the first female soldier sent to the Sahel region
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...
since the French operation against Islamists began there in 2013.

Both Huynh and Risser were members of a regiment specializing in intelligence work.

"Their vehicle hit an improvised bomb during an intelligence mission," the French presidency said of Saturday's incident.

BATTLE AGAINST JIHADIS
Around 5,100 French troops are stationed across the Sahel region and have been fighting jihadi groups alongside soldiers from Mauritania, Chad, 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, who together make up the G5 Sahel group.

The al-Qaeda-linked Group to Support Islam and Moslems (GSIM)
...in Arabic Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM), the regional umbrella affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa...
had grabbed credit for an earlier attack that killed three French soldiers in central Mali.

The group, the main jihadist alliance in the Sahel, says the main reasons for its continued attacks on French troops is La Belle France's military presence in the region as well as the publication of Prophet Mohammad's by a French newspaper and Macron's defense of them in the name of freedom of expression.

President Macron has affirmed La Belle France's determination to continue its role in "the battle against terrorism."

Last month, La Belle France said its forces killed Bah ag Moussa, a leader of al-Qaeda's North Africa wing, during an operation in northeastern Mali.

In November, French forces killed 50 Death Eaters linked to al-Qaeda central Mali.
Posted by trailing wife 2021-01-03 00:45|| || Front Page|| [1 views ]  Top
 File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa 










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