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(Reuters) - France said on Saturday it could confirm "with certainty" al Qaeda commander Abdelhamid Abou Zeid was killed in Mali in February.

"The president of the French Republic confirms with certainty the death of Abdelhamid Abou Zeid after an offensive by the French army in the Adrar des Ifoghas (mountains) in the North of Mali, at the end of February," the Elysee presidential palace said.

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Chad foreign minister warns against early Mali exit

By John Irish
PARIS | Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:39am EDT
(Reuters) - Chad warned France and its African allies on Thursday against crying victory too soon in the fight against Islamist rebels in northern Mali, saying only 70 percent of the battle was won in the country's desolate far north.

Chad's Foreign Minister Moussa Faki Mahamat urged African nations to send troops to the frontline in the rugged Adrar des Ifoghas mountains where 2,400 Chadian soldiers are battling pockets of die-hard Islamists, together with French forces.

A nine-week French-led campaign expelled militants from north Mali's main towns, leaving pockets of resistance in the desert and rock-strewn mountains by the Algerian border.




French President Francois Hollande said on Wednesday almost all Mali's sovereignty would be restored in a few days. France aims to begin withdrawing its 4,000 troops from late April.

Asked about that plan, Faki said: "More than 70 percent of the job has been done but we shouldn't celebrate victory too soon because we have an unusual enemy in an unusual terrain."

"We need to be careful. Look at what happened in Timbuktu today," he said in an interview in the Chadian embassy in Paris.

An Islamist suicide bomber killed a Malian soldier and wounded six others in a raid on Timbuktu's airport overnight, the first attack in the desert trading city since Islamists there fled a French offensive nearly two months ago.

France said 10 militants were killed in the raid, which raised doubts over how well France and its allies controlled the territory behind the frontline. Most fighting in recent weeks has been around the town of Gao or in the Adrar des Ifoghas, with some suicide attacks in the far northern town of Kidal.

France intervened in the northern Mali conflict on January 11, saying Islamists' seizure of the region last year gave them a launchpad to attack the West.

Paris is now pushing for the effective deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force of up to 10,000 troops to replace the 6,000-strong African mission, AFISMA. U.N. diplomats say this relies on there first being an end to offensive military operations.

Mali's demoralized and poorly disciplined army, expelled from the region in April 2012 by a Tuareg revolt subsequently hijacked by the Islamists, has yet to return to the far north.

Chadian President Idriss Deby showed frustration with West African leaders in February, demanding they urgently speed up deployment of forces to north Mali to aid Chadian and French troops. The Chadian death toll stands at about 30 since it launched its intervention in January.

Faki reiterated his president's concerns but said his country would maintain a contingent within the future U.N. force until Malians were able to protect themselves. He said the details of any U.N. deployment had to be finalized.

"The threat to Mali was a threat to Chad. If the threat had been in another country then we would still have intervened as it's our own security at stake," he said, adding that there had been no attempts by al Qaeda affiliates to strike in Chad.

Deby has said his troops have killed al Qaeda's two top field commanders in the region, Abdelhamid Abou Zeid and Mokhtar Belmokhtar, though France has yet to confirm the information.

"We said what we had to say. Those two are well and truly dead," Faki said. "Our priority is to secure and stabilize the region and save the (French) hostages."

Al Qaeda's North Africa wing said it had beheaded one of its seven French hostages in retaliation for France's intervention in Mali, Mauritania's ANI news agency reported on Tuesday.

(Editing by Daniel Flynn and Paul Casciato)

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Timbuktu suicide attack reopens front for French in Mali

BAMAKO | Thu Mar 21, 2013 11:39am EDT
(Reuters) - A suicide car-bomber killed a Malian soldier and wounded six others in a raid on the airport in Timbuktu overnight, just a day after Paris said a French-led campaign had nearly driven Islamists out of all of northern Mali.

France said 10 Islamist fighters were killed in the raid on the ancient desert trading town, the first suicide attack there since French and Malian troops chased al Qaeda-linked militants from Timbuktu nearly two months ago. It comes weeks ahead of the planned start of France's withdrawal from Mali.

Captain Samba Coulibaly, spokesman for Mali's army in Timbuktu, said the Malian soldier was killed when an Islamist detonated a car bomb at a checkpoint near positions held by French soldiers controlling the airport.

"We are mopping up to see if there are any other attackers in the area," he added.

The French military said French air support and troops took part in fighting overnight to repel the attack. There were no French casualties.

"About 10 terrorists were killed during this operation," French army spokesman Thierry Burkhard said in Paris.

A resident in the northern town said he heard two air strikes overnight and gunfire in the early morning but by 0900 GMT (9:00 a.m. local) fighting had stopped. French war planes flew overhead on Thursday morning, he said.




A French military officer in Mali, who asked not to be named, said some 30 Islamists took part in the raid.

"It took a while but the result was good," the officer said.

However, Burkhard said two Malian soldiers had been slightly wounded by friendly fire when the French intervened.

MALI FREED "WITHIN DAYS"

The French-led offensive in Mali has pushed a mix of Islamists out of the northern towns and the remote mountain bases they had occupied but the militants have hit back with several suicide attacks on newly freed towns.

French President Francois Hollande said late on Wednesday that French troops were in the last phase of operations and virtually all of Mali's territory would be freed "within days".

African forces also operating in Mali said they had secured the Wagadou Forest, to the west of Timbuktu.

A French diplomatic source told Reuters he believed the French operation was "in the final straight" in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountain range, near Algeria, where core Islamist leaders are believed to have fled.

But the attack on Timbuktu - which had not previously seen the guerrilla-style attacks mounted in Gao and Kidal, northern Mali's two other main towns - is likely to raise concerns over plans by Paris to start withdrawing troops next month.

Underscoring the pockets of Islamist resistance that are still holding out, the French defense ministry said late on Wednesday that about 15 militants had been killed in a week of operations in Gao region.

Mali's army remains in tatters after a coup and a string of morale-sapping defeats last year, and African troops due to replace the French lack logistics, funding and training.

Efforts to rescue at least seven French hostages held by Islamists in Mali have so far failed and Mauritanian media reported this week that al Qaeda's wing in the region had claimed to have killed one in retaliation for the operation.

France has said it cannot confirm the report.

(Writing and additional reporting by David Lewis; Additional reporting by Leigh Thomas, John Irish and Cyril Altmeyer in Paris; Editing by Sophie Hares)

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navyreco said:

A few videos from NAVDEX

[video=youtube;sTQ_rgdhzxo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTQ_rgdhzxo[/video]

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navyreco said:

FREMM in NYC

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France, keen to boost military strength, avoids defense cuts

3:12pm EDT
By John Irish and Patrick Vignal
PARIS (Reuters) - France will keep its defense budget at the same level for the next six years after the government decided proposed cuts would hamper its ability to mount military operations such as its intervention in Mali.
The freeze will still lead to the loss of 34,000 jobs in the defense ministry at a time of growing unemployment in France, according to a strategic review announced on Monday.
The decision also means the Socialist government will need to look elsewhere to raise funds as it tries to reduce state spending by 60 billion euros over its five-year term and meet deficit targets.
"France wants to maintain its ability to react alone. This recent period has proved that there is a definite lack in the army in terms of equipment," President Francois Hollande said.
Hollande had come under pressure from his own left-wing lawmakers and armed forces officials who feared any cuts ordered by the finance ministry would harm France's military capability.
The military won plaudits for its intervention in Mali in January which drove back Islamist rebels. But the operation showed its limitations in mid-air refueling, troop transportation and intelligence gathering.
In a sign of ongoing fighting in Mali despite reports of a lull, the president's office said a French soldier was killed in combat there on Monday, bringing the French toll to six.
The French review, which outlines defense priorities from 2014 to 2019, comes at a sensitive time for France, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and a nuclear power.
The document seeks to overhaul the armed forces to create a more mobile army and to boost intelligence resources and special forces. It also makes cyber security a priority.
Hollande ordered the review to take recent revolutions in the Arab world into account as well as changes to France's historical ties in Africa, and a shift in the United States' focus away from Europe towards Asia.
The defense ministry has borne the brunt of cuts in recent years, seeing its annual budget decline from about 2.5 percent of economic output since the end of the Cold War.
The White Paper set an overall budget for the period of 179.2 billion euros ($233.4 billion). It kept 2014 spending at 31.4 billion euros, equivalent to 1.5 percent of GDP.
It also factored in job cuts from the 228,000 personnel now.
"In total, from 2014 to 2019, the defense ministry will have to reduce its staff by about 34,000 people," the document said.
INDUSTRY PROTECTED
Paris will push for a more integrated European Union defense program, the review said, and will co-operate with Britain on a new anti-ship missile.
France's own defense industry had been braced for spending cuts that many feared would cause job losses and slash investment in research and development.
Contractors including Thales and Safran wrote to Hollande in March warning him of the risk of cutting back on defense spending when the number of people out of work is rising.
A list of priorities spares the chief procurement programs from being axed.
France will renew its ageing fleet of Boeing refueling tankers with a program to buy converted Airbus A330 passenger jets from 2014. Its targeted refueling fleet of 12 aircraft is lower than previous estimates of 14 planes.
The White Paper also backs the Airbus A400M military airlifter, a seven-nation project plagued by cost overruns and delays. France aims to have a fleet of 50 tactical airlifters. ($1 = 0.7676 euros)
(Additional reporting by Julien Ponthus and Tim Hepher; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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UPDATE 3-France, keen to boost military strength, avoids defence cuts
2:59pm EDT
* Lawmakers, army had feared big cuts in defence sector
* Hollande says White Paper ensures France's independence
* Review spares chief procurement programmes for now
By John Irish and Patrick Vignal
PARIS, April 29 (Reuters) - France will keep its defence budget at the same level for the next six years after the government decided proposed cuts would hamper its ability to mount military operations such as its intervention in Mali.
The freeze will still lead to the loss of 34,000 jobs in the defence ministry at a time of growing unemployment in France, according to a strategic review announced on Monday.
The decision also means the Socialist government will need to look elsewhere to raise funds as it tries to reduce state spending by 60 billion euros over its five-year term and meet deficit targets.
"France wants to maintain its ability to react alone. This recent period has proved that there is a definite lack in the army in terms of equipment," President Francois Hollande said.
Hollande had come under pressure from his own left-wing lawmakers and armed forces officials who feared any cuts ordered by the finance ministry would harm France's military capability.
The military won plaudits for its intervention in Mali in January which drove back Islamist rebels. But the operation showed its limitations in mid-air refuelling, troop transportation and intelligence gathering.
In a sign of ongoing fighting in Mali despite reports of a lull, the president's office said a French soldier was killed in combat there on Monday, bringing the French toll to six.
The French review, which outlines defence priorities from 2014 to 2019, comes at a sensitive time for France, a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and a nuclear power.
The document seeks to overhaul the armed forces to create a more mobile army and to boost intelligence resources and special forces. It also makes cyber security a priority.
Hollande ordered the review to take recent revolutions in the Arab world into account as well as changes to France's historical ties in Africa, and a shift in the United States' focus away from Europe towards Asia.
The defence ministry has borne the brunt of cuts in recent years, seeing its annual budget decline from about 2.5 percent of economic output since the end of the Cold War.
The White Paper set an overall budget for the period of 179.2 billion euros ($233.4 billion). It kept 2014 spending at 31.4 billion euros, equivalent to 1.5 percent of GDP.
It also factored in job cuts from the 228,000 personnel now.
"In total, from 2014 to 2019, the defence ministry will have to reduce its staff by about 34,000 people," the document said.
INDUSTRY PROTECTED
Paris will push for a more integrated European Union defence programme, the review said, and will co-operate with Britain on a new anti-ship missile.
France's own defence industry had been braced for spending cuts that many feared would cause job losses and slash investment in research and development.
Contractors including Thales and Safran wrote to Hollande in March warning him of the risk of cutting back on defence spending when the number of people out of work is rising.
A list of priorities spares the chief procurement programmes from being axed.
France will renew its ageing fleet of Boeing refuelling tankers with a programme to buy converted Airbus A330 passenger jets from 2014. Its targeted refuelling fleet of 12 aircraft is lower than previous estimates of 14 planes.
The White Paper also backs the Airbus A400M military airlifter, a seven-nation project plagued by cost overruns and delays. France aims to have a fleet of 50 tactical airlifters.

Click to expand...