The French and Malian armies eliminated around 100 jihadists during a large-scale operation carried out jointly in January in central Mali, the Malian army said on Tuesday (January 26th).
"About a hundred terrorists neutralized, about twenty captured and several motorcycles and war materials seized" during Operation "Eclipse", carried out from January 2 to 20 by the Malian army and the French Barkhane force, said the Malian army. in a press release.
Paris said last week that around twenty jihadists were killed in mid-January by the French military and their local partners in northern Burkina Faso, in the so-called "three borders" area (Burkina, Mali, Niger), during an operation carried out in coordination with "Eclipse".
In Mali, it was a question of "driving the enemy out of its zones of refuge" in the Douentza-Hombori-Boulkessi sector, a region of sparse forests and bushes overhung by a rocky massif where elements of the Group are located. Support for Islam and Muslims (GSIM, or Jnim in Arabic), a jihadist alliance affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
Other groups, linked for their part to the Islamic State organization, are also present in the region.
Paris is fighting the jihadists in the Sahel with 5,100 men, deployed since 2013 alongside the armies of the G5 Sahel (Mauritania, Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Niger).
These armies, however, rarely claim such an important human toll in a single operation against groups which do not number in their hard core no more than a few thousand men.
"Anthill"
"With Eclipse, (the soldiers) are really at the heart of the anthill," said a Western diplomatic source in the Malian capital on Tuesday.
These anti-jihadist operations are not immune to controversy.
The chief of staff of the Malian army ordered in mid-January an investigation into the circumstances of the death of three jihadists taken prisoner during their transfer to a military camp.
And several NGOs are calling for an independent investigation into a French airstrike near the village of Bounti.
Villagers and a Fulani association claim that this strike killed about twenty inhabitants during a wedding on January 3.
The French and Malian authorities for their part hammer home that the French fighter planes targeted and eliminated dozens of jihadists and that there were no marriages, women or children.
The dissolved junta
Paris "probably hopes that the controversy will have subsided as the N'Djamena summit approaches (February 15 and 16), where the results of the operation will undoubtedly be highlighted", told AFP on Tuesday a UN source.
This summit, a year after that of Pau, where the French and Sahelian leaders had decided to intensify their struggle in the area of the "three borders", should make it possible to take stock of the French commitment.
French President Emmanuel Macron has already warned that he intended to "adjust French efforts" in the region.
To lighten its burden, Paris relies heavily on the new Takuba force, a group of European special forces tasked with accompanying the Malian army in combat.
The men leading the transition in Mali, set up after the coup d'état that overthrew President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in August, will also be able to take advantage at this summit of the formal dissolution, announced on Tuesday, of the National Committee for the People's Salvation (CNSP), the body formed by the putschist military.
The transitional government will also be able to boast of working for the implementation of the 2015 peace agreements, an essential factor in the return to stability in Mali.
After integrating ex-rebels into the government, a ministerial delegation visited Kidal on Monday for the first time in months, a stronghold of former Tuareg independence rebels in the north of the country.
Two large communities sign "peace agreements"
Representatives of the Fulani and Dogon communities of central Mali have also signed three agreements in an attempt to restore stability in this region particularly affected by intercommunal and jihadist violence, announced Tuesday a Swiss NGO specializing in mediations.
The Fulani communities, made up mainly of pastoralists, and Dogon, practicing mainly agriculture, of 11 of the 16 municipalities that make up the Koro circle signed these "peace agreements" between January 12 and 24, after four months of mediation, the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue (HD) said in a statement.
With AFP
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