France military says Mali town Konna 'not recaptured'

 

Almost 800 French soldiers have arrived in Mali as part of the military operation

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Mali: Divided nation

• France's war
• Regional threat
• Risky move?
• Who's who?

French military officials say the Malian army has not recaptured the central town of Konna, contradicting reports from Mali at the weekend.

France launched its military intervention last Friday after Islamists seized Konna and began advancing further south.

After French air strikes began, a Malian military official said the army had brought Konna back under control.

But the defence minister in Paris said it was not in Malian hands.

Jean-Yves Le Drian said the French aerial campaign had managed to block the rebels who had moved back to an area between Douentza and Gao.

But, he said, "at this time, the town of Konna has still not been recaptured by the Malian armed forces".

BBC Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield says the significance is unclear, but it suggests that the Malian army on the ground does not have the capacity to take advantage of the air support offered by the French.

Heritage site

In March and April last year, Islamist and secular Tuareg rebels overran the main population centres in northern Mali. Soon the Islamists, some with links to al-Qaeda, took control and imposed a hardline form of Sharia.

While a West African force was being planned with the aim of bringing the north back under the control of the Malian government, the rebels began moving further south.

A series of air attacks by French helicopters and fighter planes reportedly sent the rebels fleeing from two of the main northern towns, Gao and Timbuktu. But gunfire was heard outside Timbuktu, a Unesco world heritage site, on Tuesday.

And the Islamists have hit back, seizing the central town of Diabaly on Monday, 350km (220 miles) north-east of the capital, Bamako.

Almost 800 French troops have been sent to help the Malian military fight back against the Islamists and their numbers are expected to increase to 2,500.

Air strikes were launched on targets in Diabaly on Monday night and AFP news agency quoted a local government official in the area as saying that hundreds of Malian and French soldiers were heading for the town in armoured vehicles.

A West African force of about 3,300 is due to start arriving in Mali in the next few days, under a UN Security Council resolution.

The force will be made up of 900 Nigerian soldiers, the first of whom will leave for Bamako on Wednesday, as well as troops from Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Togo.

French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday that France had three aims in Mali: "To stop the terrorist aggression... make Bamako safe... and enable Mali to recover its territorial integrity.

The battle for Mali

French forces have bombed rebel bases in Mali, where Islamist rebels have threatened to advance on the capital Bamako from their strongholds in the north. France said it had decided to act to stop the offensive, which could create "a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe".

The landlocked area of West Africa was the core of ancient empires going back to the 4th Century. The French colonised Mali, then known as French Sudan, at the end of the 19th Century, while Islamic religious wars created theocratic states in the region.

Mali gained independence in 1960 but endured droughts, rebellions and 23 years of military dictatorship until democratic elections in 1992. In the early 1990s, the nomadic Tuareg of the north began an insurgency over land and cultural rights.

The insurgency gathered momentum in 2007, and was exacerbated by an influx of arms from the 2011 Libyan civil war. Tuareg nationalists, alongside Islamist groups with links to al-Qaeda, seized control of the north in 2012 after a military coup by soldiers frustrated by government efforts against the rebels.

The fighting in the north and the establishment of a harsh form of Islamic law has forced thousands to flee their homes - some estimates say more than half the northern population has fled south or across borders into neighbouring countries.

In January 2013, the Islamists captured the central city of Konna. France, responding to appeals for help from the Mali president, has sent about 550 troops to the Mopti and to Bamako, which is home to about 6,000 French nationals. French jets have also launched air strikes.

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