44 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
44 lines
3.3 KiB
Plaintext
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The UN Security Council has called for a swift deployment of foreign troops to Mali to rein in ultra-conservative armed groups in charge of the country's north.
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The call on Friday comes as the fighters are vowing to capture more territory in the West African nation.
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Diplomats at the UN in New York said Dioncounda Traore, Mali's interim president, had appealed to Paris and UN chief Ban Ki-moon for help.
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Citing a letter from the president, Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said: "It basically said: 'Help - France'."
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France is Mali's former colonial ruler and the two countries maintain bilateral relations.
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Francois Hollande, the French president, told a meeting of diplomats in Paris on Thursday his country would respond urgently to Mali's appeal, but would only act under the auspices of the UN.
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"They are trying to deliver a fatal blow to the very existence of this country," Hollande said of the Islamist groups that control the north of Mali.
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"France, like its African partners and the whole of the international community, cannot accept this."
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Al Jazeera's Rory Challands, reporting from Paris, said French military officials would neither confirm nor deny reports that French troops had already arrived in Mali.
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"We did hear from a spokesman with ECOWAS, the bloc of West African nations, that the UN has endorsed to go in with a military force into Mali … They did almost as good as confirm that the French were there but they're saying the French are there purely to train Malian troops and to offer logistical support."
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Following an emergency meeting on Mali, the Security Council called for a "rapid deployment" of an agreed African force to the country and expressed "grave concern" at the capture of the town of Konna by "terrorists and extremists groups".
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'Foreign' troops
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ECOWAS has agreed to deploy a force of up to 3,000 to help end the insurgency, which gained momentum and saw the capture of large swathes of territory in the wake of a coup staged by junior army officers last March.
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The officers behind the coup said it was prompted by the failure of the government to contain the rebellion.
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Although UN officials had warned that no troops were likely to arrive before September, witnesses told the AFP news agency that foreign troops and weapons had already begun arriving.
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AFP said witnesses said the troops arrived by transport plane on Thursday to bolster government forces in central Mali, but it was unclear what country they came from.
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France had so far offered only logistical support to the regional force.
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Witnesses told AFP of military aircraft landing with weapons and foreign soldiers at an army base in Sevare, just 60km from Konna.
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One witness at the airport reported seeing weapons and soldiers leaving a C-160 military transport aircraft, adding: "Some of the men were white."
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A Malian official, confirming the arrival of the military aircraft, said they included one plane from a European nation that left men and equipment at Sevare, but did not say which one.
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Earlier on Thursday, Abdou Dardar of Ansar Dine, one of the groups occupying northern Mali, told AFP that Islamist fighters had taken Konna, northeast of the regional capital of Mopti.
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"We almost entirely control the town [of Konna]. Afterwards, we are going to continue" pushing south, Dardar said by phone. Witnesses told AFP that Malian troops were retreating.
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