Mali: French Intervention Hits Drug Running

France's surprise intervention against Islamist fighters involved in lucrative drug-running in northern Mali has disrupted cocaine supply to Europe, analysts have said.

The former colonial power sent fighter jets and troops two months ago to eliminate al Qaeda-linked groups controlling the north of the country and threatening to move south towards the capital. The jihadist network in Mali has funded itself by taking foreign hostages, but also levying a tax on smugglers running drugs from Latin America to Europe.

Poverty and the lack of government presence in the vast desert has provided an ideal ground for smugglers.
Typically, the drugs are shipped to the Gulf of Guinea or flown in directly from countries including Venezuela into Mauritania or Mali, where they are stored and eventually taken overland to the Mediterranean's southern shores.

The route is known as "Highway 10" in reference to the 10th parallel, a line of latitude which cuts through Colombia and Venezuela at one end, Guinea and Nigeria at the other and just misses Mali.

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