France maintains Sahel force to ‘decapitate’ Al-Qaeda groups

PARIS: President Emmanuel Macron pledged on Tuesday to keep French troops in the Sahel region of western Africa, to help to “decapitate” Al-Qaeda-linked insurgent groups that local governments are struggling to hold back.

But while Macron said there would be no “immediate” drawdown of the 5,100-member Barkhane force, he made clear that France expected to have a far lighter presence over time.

“Changes that are likely to be significant will be made to our military deployment in the Sahel when the time comes, but they will not be made immediately,” Macron told reporters after a video summit with the leaders of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

The so-called G5 countries were urged to step up their anti-terror fight and work on restoring government control in areas where Islamist fighters have closed schools and driven millions from their homes. Just hours before the summit opened, Malian sources said two soldiers had been killed by a roadside bomb in central Mali. “We are re-engaging our forces in order to decapitate these organisations,” Macron said after the two-day meeting in Chad’s capital N’Djamena.

The aim is to strengthen actions against terrorism while delivering a “political jolt” to give the people something to hope for, he said.

He confirmed efforts would now focus on combatting the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and in particular one of its main armed groups, Katiba Macina, linked to Al-Qaeda.

That marks a shift from several months ago, when the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara was seen as the primary threat to stability in the desert region, where more than two million people have been displaced over the past eight years. France first sent troops into Mali in early 2013 to fight Islamist insurgents who had seized control of the country’s northern half, with the Barkhane operation formally starting in August 2014. However, despite some successes including last year’s killing of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) leader Abdelmalek Droukdel, insurgents have continued to carry out deadly attacks.