As Islamist fighters scored new gains in northern Mali, French ground forces intervened Friday to help the sagging Malian army, opening a new front in the confrontation between the West and al-Qaeda-allied guerrillas.
French President Francois Hollande, who announced the unexpected deployment, did not say how many French soldiers were on the ground or exactly what their mission is. But he promised that France’s participation in the fighting would “last as long as necessary” to guarantee that the Malian government and army can maintain control of the former French colony in northwest Africa.
“At stake is the very existence of the Malian state,” he said in a televised declaration.
Hollande’s decision to intervene dramatized European and U.S. concerns over recent military gains by the half-dozen Islamist and Tuareg militias that have controlled the northern two-thirds of the country for more than seven months. Ruling a 250,000 square-mile area, they have scattered Malian soldiers southward, imposed strict Muslim laws on the civilian population and created a vast new haven for north African terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
Read more: France’s Hollande sends troops to Mali - The Washington Post
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