French planes pound Islamist camps in north Mali desert

Reuters ^ | Sun Feb 3, 2013 3:11pm EST | Elena Berton and Tiemoko Diallo

[Pan_Yan]

(Reuters) - French warplanes pounded Islamist rebel camps in the far north of Mali on Sunday, military sources said, a day after French President Francois Hollande was hailed as a savior during a visit to the West African country.

Thierry Burkhard, spokesman for the French army in Paris, said the overnight raids targeted logistics bases and training camps used by the al Qaeda-linked rebels near the town of Tessalit, close to the Algerian border.

...

France says the rebels are also holding hostage in these mountains seven of its citizens, seized in recent years in the Sahara region.

Malian military sources said French and Chadian troops had clashed with members of the Ansar Dine militant group in the region around Kidal on Saturday.

...

France has deployed 3,500 ground troops, fighter jets and armored vehicles in the three-week-old Operation Serval (Wildcat) which has broken the Islamists' 10-month grip on the towns of northern Mali, where they violently imposed sharia law.

[littleharbour]

You can be guaranteed that the French are not tying the hands of their soldiers with absurd rules of engagement. If there is collateral damage that’s unfortunate, but it’s the cost of war. The bad guys are the ones responsible. If you spend 15 minutes watching Youtube video of American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is shocking the minute level of control that is placed on the pilots when engaging enemy targets. In some of the cases the enemy is given time to disperse because of the delay in firing approval. It’s no way to run a war.

[jmacusa]

History may well be written by the winners but I think the socialists do the editing.

[Stand W]

As our muslim in chief has us holding their coat. Sad.

But yes, at least someone from the West is fighting the war the way it should be fought.