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France's Francois Hollande to visit Mali | France's Francois Hollande to visit Mali |
(35 minutes later) | |
France's President Francois Hollande is to visit Mali, where three weeks of targeted French air strikes have forced Islamist militants to retreat. | France's President Francois Hollande is to visit Mali, where three weeks of targeted French air strikes have forced Islamist militants to retreat. |
Mr Hollande will fly into Bamako to meet interim President Dioncounda Traore, his office says. | Mr Hollande will fly into Bamako to meet interim President Dioncounda Traore, his office says. |
He is set to visit Timbuktu, recently seized from Islamist rebels by French and Malian troops, on Saturday. | He is set to visit Timbuktu, recently seized from Islamist rebels by French and Malian troops, on Saturday. |
The French military intervention has recaptured large parts of northern Mali from Islamist groups. | The French military intervention has recaptured large parts of northern Mali from Islamist groups. |
French troops are currently securing Kidal, the last major town which was occupied by militants who had controlled much of the northern part of the former French colony since a coup last year. | |
Mr Hollande will be joined on his trip by Foreign Minister Lauren Fabius, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Development Minister Pascal Canin. | |
Earlier, Mr Le Drian said the jihadists had now scattered, marking a "turning-point" in France's intervention. | |
For a president whose popularity was waning, so often criticised for his indecisiveness, the intervention in Mali has been a welcome success, says the BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris. | |
The president has been rewarded with a slight bump in the polls but the question is what should happen next, our correspondent says. | |
French polls suggest the public only have patience for a limited operation: Eradicating the Islamist threat entirely is a bridge too far. | |
The president's objective is to prepare to hand over the towns the French-led troops have captured to an African force that has begun to deploy to Mali, and create enough stability to facilitate new elections by July. | |
So far about 2,000 African soldiers, mainly from Chad and Niger, are on the ground in Mali. | |
On Thursday, French military spokesman Col Thierry Burkhard said a column of 1,400 troops from Chad was heading towards Kidal from the Niger border. | |
It will be the job of the African Union-backed force, the International Support Mission to Mali (Afisma), to root out the al-Qaeda-linked insurgents that have fled into the desert and mountains further north. | |
The Tuareg rebels launched the insurgency in October 2011 before falling out with the Islamist militants. | |
The Islamist fighters extended their control of the vast north of Mali in April 2012, in the wake of a military coup. | |
France launched a military operation this month after the Islamist militants appeared to be threatening the south. |
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