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| Africa North |
| France Hands Timbuktu Mission to Burkina Faso Troops |
| 2013-04-24 |
| [An Nahar] The French army handed over its security operation in the Malian desert city of Timbuktu to Burkina Faso ...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and may be in the process of being chased out now... troops on Tuesday, as part of a phased withdrawal from its troubled former colony. Al-Qaeda-linked Islamic Islamic fascisti controlled Timbuktu along with other key northern Mali cities for nearly 10 months until being driven out by the French-led Operation Serval in January. "Today, during an official ceremony in Timbuktu, the French troops have passed on the torch to the troops of Burkina Faso for security operations on the ground," Malian Army captain Famba Coulibaly told Agence La Belle France Presse. The chiefs of staff of the Malian and Burkina Faso armies attended the ceremony, Coulibaly added, alongside bigwigs from Operation Serval. He told AFP there would be 650 Burkinabes on the ground by next week. La Belle France has begun a phased withdrawal of its 4,000 soldiers, with all but 1,000 expected to have left by the end of the year. Chad President Idriss Deby, who sent 2,000 troops to Mali, announced last week that its forces would be staging their own withdrawal ahead of schedule from the present 6,000-strong African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA). |
| Posted by:Fred |