Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Mali: French troops begin land assault
French ground operations began overnight, France's military chief of staff Adm. Edouard Guillaud, said on Europe 1 television Wednesday. He stressed that French infantry units "will be fighting directly in coming hours, but I am unable to say whether it is in one hour or in 72 hours. ... Of course, we will be fighting directly."
Armored vehicles loaded with French troops were seen heading toward Niono. The natural target for the French infantry is Diabaly, located 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of the capital and roughly 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Niono. French warplanes have carried out airstrikes on Diabaly since the weekend, when a column of dozens of rebel vehicles cut off the road to Diabaly and seized the town as well as its military camp.
A trickle of refugees left on foot from Diabaly, a town seized two days ago by the jihadists who have held onto it despite a punishing bombing campaign by French fighter jets. The refugees arrived in Niono town, 70 kilometers (43 miles) south of Diabaly, according to residents.
Ibrahim Komnotogo, a resident of Diabaly who heads a USAID-financed rice agriculture project, happened to be outside the town when the jihadists encircled it. He has 20 employees and contractors who he says are stuck inside the town, which has a population of 35,000. He told The Associated Press that al-Qaida-linked rebels have sealed off the roads and were preventing people from leaving. He was last able to speak to his employees on Tuesday, and had not had news of them since, after the telephone network was cut.
Komnotogo says he fears the Islamists are planning to hide within Diabaly's mud-walled neighborhoods and use the population as a human shield.
"The jihadists have split up. They don't move around in big groups ... they are out in the streets, in fours, and fives and sixes, and they are living inside the most populated neighborhoods," he said, explaining that they had taken over the homes of people who managed to flee before the road was cut off.
French warplanes bombarded the military camp, but there have been no airstrikes inside the actual town, which begins at the eastern wall of the garrison. Residents have evacuated the neighborhood called Bordeaux, after its sister city in France, which is only 500 meters (yards) from the camp, he said. They have moved mostly into a quarter called Berlin, about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the military installation.
"They are preventing the population from leaving. We have been trying to get our employees out, but they can't leave," said Komnotogo. "They have parked their pickup trucks inside the courtyards of empty homes. They have beards. And they wear boubous (a flowing robe). No one approaches them. Everyone is afraid," he said.
However some people succeeded in leaving Diabaly and later arrived in Niono, indicating that some were slipping through the rebels' noose, or that the fighters had decided to allow residents to leave.
Tidiane Diarra, one of Komnotogo's employees, who distributes water to rice growers, arrived in Niono on Wednesday. He said he had heard that the Islamists were blocking the way out of the town, but could not confirm it because he lives in a village 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) outside of Diabaly. From there, no one stopped him from leaving.
The Miami Herald
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