Affrontando i francesi, i ribelli del Mali si trincerano e si integrano
– Cinque giorni dopo l’inizio delle operazioni militari francesi, che usano aerei caccia e elicotteri sofisticati, era già evidente che da soli gli attacchi aerei non basteranno a sradicare i ribelli, che conoscono bene le aride praterie e il deserto,
o per mesi hanno accumulato armi rafforzato i ranghi, con ragazzi anche di 12 anni, che addestrano regolarmente, e costruito difese nelle loro roccaforti del Nord,
o e ampliato un sistema di gallerie sotterranee già esistente – secondo testimoni grandi a sufficienza per immagazzinarci veicoli, armi, generatori, combustibile, e dove si riuniscono un centinaio di guerriglieri.
o I ribelli si mischiano alla popolazione locale, rendendo più difficile ai militari francesi cacciarli senza provocare vittime civili.
– I militari francesi riconoscono che è più difficile del previsto contenere l’avanzata dei ribelli verso la capitale, Bamako; da prevedere un lungo conflitto dato che le forze armate regolari sono nel caos e non sono ancora organizzate le forze africane di Ecowas.
– I bombardamenti possono arrestarne l’avanzata, ma appena cessano, i ribelli tornano.
– Le forze francesi sul terreno sono circa 800, dopo l’arrivo di circa 200 soldati e 60 veicoli corazzati, dalla Costa d’Avorio. A breve il contingente sarà portato a 2500 soldati, circa il numero massimo dei soldati francesi dispiegati in Afghanistan.
– Il ministro francese alla Difesa, Le Drian: la Francia è intervenuta per impedire il collasso del governo del Mali e la creazione di uno stato terrorista a breve distanza da Europa e Francia. La missione francese dovrebbe essere d’appoggio alla forza africana di Ecowas, che dovrebbe giungere entro una settimana.
– Anche gli Usa si sono impegnati a sostenere la missione francese; il segretario americano alla Difesa, Panetta: Attualmente non sono in grado di dire esattamente quale sia il loro obiettivo e se possano o meno riuscirci.
Combattimenti “corpo a corpo” tra francesi ed islamisti in Mali
– Le forze speciali francesi combattono ormai corpo a corpo con gli islamisti a Diabali, 400 km da Bamako, accompagnati dalle forze armate maliane.
– Secondo il ministro francese Difesa, nell’area a sud di Diabali ci sono i gruppi più duri, determinati, meglio organizzati, ed armati; sarebbero diverse centinaia, sui 1200 -1300, forse con rinforzi.
– Da quando hanno preso il Nord, in attesa di un intervento straniero, hanno avuto il tempo di preparare una guerra di movimento, e nascondere depositi di carburante nelle aree desertiche dove si disperdono e depositi di armi, alla periferia degli agglomerati urbani.
– Il presidente della Costa d’Avorio, Ouattara, ha chiesto da Berlino il sostegno di tutti gli europei all’operazione francese in Mali.
La Cancelliera tedesca Merkel: il terrorismo nel Mali è una minaccia per l’Europa; la Germania ha messo a disposizione due aerei Transall, 1 mn di € per aiuti umanitari per i rifugiati nei paesi vicini al Mali.
January 15, 2013
Facing the French, Mali Rebels Dig In and Blend In
By ADAM NOSSITER and ERIC SCHMITT
– BAMAKO, Mali — In the face of fierce, all-night bombardment by the French military, Mali’s Islamist insurgents have hunkered down to fight again.
– Barging into some of the mud-brick houses in the battle zone and ejecting residents, they have sought to implant themselves in the local population and add to the huge challenges facing the French military campaign to loosen their grip on Mali.
“They are in the town, almost everywhere in the town,” said Bekaye Diarra, who owns the pharmacy in Diabaly, which experienced French bombing well into the morning on Tuesday but remained under the control of the insurgents. “They are installing themselves.”
– Benco Ba, a parliamentary deputy there, described residents in fear of the conflict that had descended on them. “The jihadists are going right into people’s families,” he said. “They have completely occupied the town. They are dispersed. It’s fear.”
– Just five days into the French military campaign, it was becoming clear that airstrikes alone will probably not be enough to root out these battle-hardened fighters, who know well the harsh grassland and desert terrain of Mali and have spent months accumulating arms, constructing defenses in their northern strongholds and reinforcing their ranks with children as young as 12 years old.
– Containing their southern advance toward Bamako, the capital, is proving more challenging than anticipated, French military officials acknowledged Tuesday. And with the Malian Army in disarray and no outside African force yet assembled, displacing the rebels from the country altogether appears to be an elusive, long-term challenge.
– The jihadists are “dug in” at Diabaly, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian of France said Tuesday at a news conference. From that strategic town, they “threaten the south,” he said, adding: “We face a well-armed and determined adversary.”
– Mr. Le Drian also acknowledged that the Malian Army had not managed to retake the town of Konna, whose seizure by the rebels a week ago provoked the French intervention. “We will continue the strikes to diminish their potential,” the minister said.
– Using advanced attack planes and sophisticated military helicopters, the French campaign has forced the Islamists from important northern towns like Gao and Douentza. But residents there say that while the insurgents suffered losses, many of them had simply gone into the nearby bush.
– “Bombing will weaken them, and it will stop their advance,” said Djallil Lounnas, an expert on the region at the University of Montreal who has written widely on Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, one of the main extremist groups in northern Mali. “But as soon as the bombing stops, they’ll come back.”
Since the French started bombing, he said, “the situation has changed slightly, but not fundamentally.”
Other analysts said that while forcing the insurgents from the cities was achievable, eliminating them altogether would require considerable additional effort.
– “You can’t launch a war of extermination against a very tenacious and mobile adversary,” said Col. Michel Goya of the French Military Academy’s Strategic Research Institute. “We are in a classic counterinsurrectionary situation. They are well armed, but the weapons are not sophisticated. A couple of thousand men, very mobile.”
And they have been preparing for battle for months.
– One resident of Gao who accompanied Islamist fighters to a desert hide-out in recent months described a vast system of underground caves big enough to drive cars into, said Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch.
– Around 100 Islamist fighters, many of them bearded foreigners speaking Arabic, had gathered inside, stockpiling weapons, vehicles, generators and scores of barrels of gasoline, the resident said. The bunker was well camouflaged, almost invisible from the rugged roads, and had long been used by bandits in the area. But the Islamists were expanding the tunnels and, even before the French campaign, had been gathering in them from towns across the north.
– While striking the Islamists from the air, France was steadily building up its forces on the ground: 200 more soldiers and 60 armored vehicles arrived in Mali overnight on Tuesday from Ivory Coast, bringing the total to nearly 800 soldiers.
– The French Defense Ministry said the force would soon number 2,500, in the vicinity of its peak Afghanistan deployment. Late Tuesday, a French convoy was heading north from Bamako; a military spokesman refused to disclose its destination.
– France is the former colonial power in Mali, and Mr. Le Drian, the defense minister, has said it intervened to prevent the possible collapse of Mali’s government and “the establishment of a terrorist state within range of Europe and of France.” The French mission is aimed at supporting an African force that is still being assembled and that French officials said could begin to deploy in as soon as a week.
– The United States has also committed its support to the French mission.
– Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, traveling in Spain, said that France faced a difficult task in taking on the extremists and that the Pentagon remained in talks with the French about what sort of aid was required.
– “I can’t really give you a full analysis as to just exactly what they’re targeting and how successful or not successful they may be in that effort as of this moment,” Mr. Panetta said at a news conference with the Spanish defense minister, Pedro Morenés. But Mr. Panetta added that “any time you confront an enemy that is dispersed and that is not located necessarily in one area makes it challenging, and the ability to go after that enemy and be able to stop them from moving forward represents a difficult task.”
– The implications of the nascent French deployment — and of the Islamist takeover of Diabaly, only about 220 miles from the capital here — seem clear: rooting out the few thousand insurgents could well be a slog.
– The Islamists are well armed, with AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns mounted on vehicles, as well as some armored personnel carriers seized from the Malian military last year.
– A former captive of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Mali, the Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, described a very fit band of men, adept at quickly staging heavy weaponry on trucks.
– One of their leaders, Mr. Fowler wrote in a memoir, “would escort the half-dozen younger ones on training missions at the run, and they practiced small-unit tactics, slithering among the rocks and dunes for hours in the blistering sun.”
– He continued, “They ran up and down mountains and did sentry duty at least twice each day, in addition to performing their various chores and going on missions.”
– In the initial clashes, allied officials said, French airstrikes inflicted heavy losses on Islamist columns that could be easily identified and attacked as they advanced on roads. That led to some optimistic assessments of a rout.
– But a military spokesman for the French operation in Mali said Tuesday that the Islamists had taken more territory since the French air raid began because the fighters were mixing in with the population and making it difficult to bomb without causing civilian casualties.
“It’s really much too soon to tell how this fight will turn out,” said an American official who has been surveying the battle from afar.
Adam Nossiter reported from Bamako, and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Steven Erlanger and Scott Sayare contributed reporting from Paris, and Elisabeth Bumiller from Madrid.
Combats "au corps à corps" entre Français et islamistes au Mali
Le Monde.fr avec AFP | 16.01.2013 à 08h42 • Mis à jour le 16.01.2013 à 15h46
Les forces spéciales françaises engagées au Mali se battent désormais "au corps à corps" avec les islamistes à Diabali, à environ 400 km au nord de Bamako, ont affirmé des sources de sécurité mercredi 16 janvier. Elles sont accompagnées par l’armée malienne.
L’information a été confirmée par une source de sécurité régionale, qui a précisé que la colonne de soldats français partie de l’aéroport de Bamako ne participait pas à ces combats mais se tenait "en alerte" à Niono (50 km au sud de Diabali) et à Markala, encore plus au sud.
– Dans cette zone, "nous avons les groupes les plus durs, les plus fanatiques, les mieux organisés, les plus déterminés et les mieux armés", selon le ministre français de la défense, Jean-Yves Le Drian. "On a affaire à plusieurs centaines, plus d’un millier – 1 200, 1 300 –, de terroristes dans la zone, avec peut-être des renforts demain", a-t-il ajouté.
A la suite de la prise de la ville de Konna par les forces rebelles, la France a lancé l’opération "Serval" afin de maintenir l’intégrité du Mali.
– Jusqu’à présent, les soldats français étaient essentiellement déployés dans la capitale, Bamako. Selon plusieurs témoins, des centaines de soldats maliens et français avaient pris la route route de Diabali dès mardi en fin d’après-midi, prise la veille par des islamistes armés et bombardée dans la nuit par l’aviation française.
– Par ailleurs, un détachement d’une centaine de soldats français est arrivé mercredi matin pour relever des membres des forces spéciales et "sécuriser" un pont stratégique sur le fleuve Niger à Markala, près de Ségou. Ce point de passage relie les territoires insurgés au sud et à la capitale Bamako.
"Nous allons relever les forces spéciales, qui ont réorganisé les forces maliennes qui étaient un peu en déroute, pour leur permettre de pousser peut-être un peu plus dans la profondeur", explique le lieutenant Marc (il ne divulgue que son prénom), du 21e régiment d’infanterie de marine, venu du Tchad.
"UN CONFLIT DE TYPE GUÉRILLA"
– Sur Europe 1, l’amiral Edouard Guillaud a souligné que les forces françaises étaient confrontées à "un conflit de type guérilla", situation à laquelle elles sont habituées. Il précise que l’aviation française a détruit, ces six derniers jours, "des cibles fixes, c’est-à-dire des camps d’entraînement, des dépôts logistiques, des centres de commandement, par exemple, comme à Douentza ou à Gao".
– Mais, depuis des mois qu’ils tiennent le nord du pays et attendent une intervention militaire étrangère, les combattants de la coalition réunie autour d’Al-Qaida au Maghreb islamique (AQMI) ont eu le temps de préparer une guerre de mouvement et d’esquive, d’enterrer des dépôts de carburant dans l’immense zone désertique où ils se dispersent actuellement, de constituer des stocks d’armes hors des grandes agglomérations.
L’amiral Guillaud a par ailleurs confirmé, mercredi, que les djihadistes "avaient récupéré des blindés auprès des forces maliennes, nous en avons détruit une partie la nuit dernière". La France a déployé 800 soldats depuis le début de son intervention militaire, vendredi 11 janvier, et ce dispositif doit être porté progressivement à 2 500 hommes.
LE PRÉSIDENT IVOIRIEN SOUHAITE UN SOUTIEN DE "TOUS LES EUROPÉENS"
– Le chef d’Etat ivoirien, Alassane Ouattara, a appelé mercredi à Berlin "tous les Européens" à soutenir l’opération de la France au Mali, lors d’une conférence de presse avec la chancelière Angela Merkel. "Je souhaite que cette action soit soutenue par tous les Européens. Il était urgent d’agir et je félicite le président Hollande mais tout le monde doit se mobiliser", a déclaré M. Ouattara, qui est aussi le président en exercice de la Communauté économique des Etats de l’Afrique de l’Ouest.
– De son côté, Angela Merkel a estimé que "le terrorisme au Mali" était "une menace pour l’Europe". L’Allemagne va mettre à disposition de la Cédéao deux avions de transport Transall ainsi qu’une aide humanitaire d’un million d’euros à destination des réfugiés dans les pays voisins du Mali.
DÉBAT PARLEMENTAIRE SUR L’ENGAGEMENT AU MALI
– L’Assemblée nationale débat ce mercredi de l’engagement français au Mali, depuis vendredi. A suivre en direct vidéo ci-dessous :
– En ouverture de ce débat, Jean-Marc Ayrault a salué "l’esprit de responsabilité dont toutes les forces politiques ont témoigné" depuis le début de l’opération "Serval", le 11 janvier.
– Quelques heures auparavant, le président de l’UMP, Jean-François Copé, avait toutefois exprimé une "inquiétude forte" en raison de "la solitude de la France" au Mali, tout en réaffirmant son soutien au gouvernement pour cette intervention.