Nearly 4,000 French troops are currently deployed in Mali, and the former colonial ruler is keen to hand over the operation to African forces amid warnings the militants could now launch a prolonged insurgency.
French-led forces have killed hundreds of militants in fighting to reclaim northern Mali and with the rebels’ last bastion secured, France said Tuesday it will begin withdrawing troops in March.
Defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the 26-day military intervention had killed
“several hundred” militants as its air and ground forces chased them from their northern strongholds into remote mountainous terrain in the far northeast, near the Algerian border.
The defence ministry said the militants died in French air strikes on vehicles transporting fighters and equipment, and in “direct combat” in the key central and northern towns of Konna and Gao.
France’s sole fatality so far has been a helicopter pilot killed at the start of the military operation.
Mali said 11 of its troops were killed and 60 wounded after the battle at Konna last month but has not since released a new death toll.
The Malian army took “some prisoners, not many, who will have to answer to Malian courts and to international justice,” Le Drian said, adding that some of those detained were high-ranking militants.
France expects to begin withdrawing its soldiers from Mali “starting in March, if all goes as planned,” French foreign minister Laurent Fabius told daily newspaper Metro in an interview published Wednesday.
“France has no intention of remaining in Mali for the long-term. It is up to the Africans and to the Malians themselves to guarantee the country’s security, territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
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