French Foreign Legion soldiers from the Operation Barkhane Counterterrorism Force taking positions as Merlin helicopters land in the Liptako-Gourma zone in northeastern Mali.
New York Times: Crisis In The Sahel Becoming France's Forever War
Riding along with French troops hunting Islamist militants in France’s unwinnable West African war.
AWAGATE FOREST, MALI — For two days, dozens of armored vehicles carrying 180 elite soldiers with the French Foreign Legion lumbered over West Africa’s scrubby savanna to reach a suspected hide-out for Islamist militants.
Finally, by a thicket of acacia trees, the legionnaires spotted a turbaned suspect in flip-flops, carrying an AK-47, who set off at a sprint and melted away in the distance. The soldiers found only his gun, boots, and ammunition holster under a thorny fence, and presented the findings to their officer.
“A bit of a modest result,’’ said Col. Nicolas Meunier, commanding officer of the French desert battle group.
When France sent its forces into Mali, a former French colony, after armed Islamists took control of the West African country’s northern cities, their mission was supposed to last only a few weeks.
That was seven years ago.
Since then, the terrorist threat has spread across a vast sweep of land south of the Sahara known as the Sahel, and France’s counterterrorism fight has spread with it. As a result, more than 10,000 West Africans have died, over a million have fled their homes and military forces from West Africa and France have suffered many losses.
And still, the battle is hardly finished. The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, a potent armed group with loose ties to the Islamic State, has been conducting sophisticated attacks in the border regions of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. In the past four months, militants have raided four major military outposts in Mali and Niger, killing 300 soldiers.
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WNU Editor: These militant groups in the Sahel have proven themselves to be very deadly .... Boko Haram Launches Attacks That Kill 92 Chadian And 70 Nigerian Soldiers (March 25, 2020).
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