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... A local official had given the camel to Mr Hollande in gratitude for France spearheading a drive to flush out Islamic extremists from Mali. But the well-intentioned gift soon proved a liability. The camel ruined its handover ceremony by drowning out a Malian official's speech with its screeching. Mr Hollande's voice could just be heard over the din when he promised: "I will use it as a means of transport as often as possible." ... The camel had already embarrassed Mr Hollande when Said Toureg, a man from the Timbuktu region, claimed that it had been stolen from him...

Hollande says solution to conflict in Western Sahara is more important than ever as result of Islamist revolt raging in northern Mali. RABAT - A solution to the conflict in Western Sahara, where a UN peacekeeping force has been deployed for two decades, is more important than ever as a result of the Islamist revolt raging in northern Mali, the French president said on Thursday. "The economic potential is enormous. But I am also aware of the obstacles, and the question of the Western Sahara, which has been waiting to be resolved for more than 30 years," President Francois Hollande...

BAMAKO/PARIS (Reuters) - France has proposed keeping a permanent force of 1,000 French troops in Mali to fight armed Islamist militants, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday. Fabius, on a visit to Bamako, said France was pushing ahead with plans to reduce its 4,000-strong military presence from the end of this month but planned to keep a combat force in Mali to support a future U.N. peacekeeping mission. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called last week for the deployment of a U.N. mission of 11,200 troops and 1,440 police in Mali once major combat ends. This would include thousands of...

A fifth French soldier was killed in the nine-week-old military campaign against Islamist rebels in Mali, the French government said on Sunday. The corporal from the 1st Marine infantry regiment of Angouleme was killed in action, President Francois Hollande's office said in a statement, without giving details. Dozens of Islamist fighters linked to al-Qaida have been killed as French and African forces have fought to drive them out of the northern region of Mali they have controlled since last April. France launched a ground and air operation in January to break the Islamist rebels' hold on the region, saying militants...

Chad’s military said Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of the world's most wanted men, died on Saturday in an assault on an Islamist rebel base in northern Mali. Belmokhtar was at the centre of an international manhunt after at least 37 foreign hostages, including six Britons, were killed after militants seized the gas complex in eastern Algeria.

GAO, Mali (Reuters) - One of al Qaeda's most feared commanders in Africa has been killed by French air strikes in north Mali, sources close to Islamist militants and tribal elders said on Friday, but France said it could not confirm this. The local sources said Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, blamed for kidnapping at least 20 Western hostages in the Sahara desert in recent years, was among 40 militants killed four days ago in the foothills of the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains. About 1,200 French troops and 800 Chadian soldiers are hunting down pockets of al Qaeda-linked insurgents in the border...

'A prominent Al-Qaeda leader has been killed by French and Chadian troops in northern Mali, the President of Chad confirmed yesterday. Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, senior commander in Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), was killed among 40 other Islamist fighters three days ago in the foothills of the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains. A U.S. official said the reports of Abou Zeid's death appear credible and that Washington would view his death as a serious blow to Al-Qaeda's north Africa wing.'

Chad's military on Saturday said that its soldiers in Mali killed the al Qaeda commander who was behind the mass hostage crisis which occurred just a few months ago at an Algerian gas plant and which left dozens dead. "On Saturday, March 2, at noon, Chadian armed forces operating in northern Mali completely destroyed a terrorist base (...) The toll included several dead terrorists, including their leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar," Chadian armed forces spokesman General Zacharia Gobongue said...

Sent scrambling into hurried retreat by last month's French military intervention, Islamist rebels in Mali left behind an Al Qaeda strategy sheet on how to avoid drones which has fallen into the hands of the AP. Some are outdated or kind of silly, yet most are not. The document also shows a professional level of international coordination and betrays the fact they think they can just ride this out. One of the tips (#10, to 'hide amongst thick trees') is said to come from OBL hisself, but as a whole it was reportedly assembled by a Yemeni AQ strategist. The...

Islamist insurgents launched a surprise raid in the heart of the Malian town of Gao on Sunday, battling French and local troops in a blow to efforts to secure Mali's recaptured north. ... French helicopters clattered overhead and fired on al Qaeda-allied rebels armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades who had infiltrated the central market area and holed up in a police station, Malian and French officers said. The fighting inside Gao was certain to raise fears that pockets of determined Islamists who have escaped the lightning four-week-old French intervention in Mali will strike back with guerrilla attacks and suicide...

A former U.S. ambassador to Mali has alleged that France paid a $17 million ransom to free hostages seized from a French mining site – cash she said ultimately funded the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militants its troops are now fighting. French officials, whose soldiers are pushing north into the territory where the missing captives are believed to be held, denied paying any ransoms. Huddleston, who served as ambassador to Mali and held positions in the State Department and Defense Department in the U.S. before retiring, told France’s iTele network that the French money allowed al-Qaeda’s North Africa branch to flourish in...

...Lets start by stating the obvious: AQIM is not a product of the Arab Spring. AQIM exists because of the military coup that ended the 'Algerian Spring' two decades ago. And it has not been strengthened by the Libyan revolution, but rather by the failure of state-building in northern Mali, the absence of post-conflict reconciliation and reintegration in Algeria, and a lack of accountability for a shadowy Algerian security establishment whose brutal methods have proven woefully inadequate to the challenge. AQIM's real origins AQIMs history can be traced directly to the coup staged by a handful of Algerian generals against...

Mali has been a hotbed of Islamic extremism of late, as al Qaeda operatives have taken the West African nation by storm. As the country deals with an influx of violence, a presidential election is slated for this year — and there’s a fascinating candidate running for office. Yeah Samake, 42, a Mormon who was born and raised in Mali, is hoping to win the presidency and to save his homeland from the grips of extremism. Samake is currently one of the top candidates in the race — a democratic election that was pushed off last year after extremist activity...

A former US ambassador to Mali has told the BBC that France that paid ransom money to free hostages and the funds ended up bolstering Islamist groups it is now fighting. Vicki Huddleston said France paid $17m (£10.75m) to free hostages seized from a uranium mine in Niger in 2010. She said other European countries, including Germany, had also paid ransoms amounting to nearly $90m. France has always denied that it pays ransoms for the release of hostages. ... Ms Huddleston said the hostages kidnapped at the Niger mine in 2010 were only released because money had changed hands. "All...

'"Several hundred" Islamist militants have been killed since France launched an offensive in Mali last month, the French defence minister has said. Jean-Yves Le Drian said they had been killed in airstrikes and direct combat with French troops. Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said that France may begin pulling out of Mali as early as March. In a newspaper interview, he said that "if everything goes as planned, the number of troops should diminish". France has an estimated 4,000 troops in Mali and officials from multilateral institutions and dozens of countries have been meeting in Brussels to discuss how...

(CNN) -- France expects to begin pulling its troops out of Mali in March, the French foreign minister told the Metro newspaper. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said troops will continue operations in northern Mali, where he said "some terrorist havens remain." ... France has 2,150 soldiers in Mali and 1,000 more troops supporting the operation from elsewhere.

PARIS — French warplanes bombed Islamist militant bases and depots deep into northern Mali to disrupt their supply routes, French officials said on Monday, as secular Tuareg rebels in northern Mali said they had captured two Islamist commanders near the Algerian border. The Tuaregs favor independence and had joined forces with better-armed Islamist fighters last year to take over much of Mali’s north. But the Tuaregs were soon edged out by their Islamist counterparts, who controlled the region’s major towns and imposed a harsh version of Islamic law, cutting off hands, stoning a couple to death and beating people in...

(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...

At least 12 men had hands or feet cut off after MUJAO (Movement for Jihad and Unity), and its allies in AQIM (al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb), took control of Gao last April. The exact number is not known because some were amputated in the military base... The mayor's office, a few yards from the punishment ground, was turned into a sharia court... Suspects were confined to a small room where they were tied up and beaten, before being brought before Islamic judges, known as marabous, who sat every Monday and Thursday. Ali Altini and Mohammed Aklini were due to...

France’s president, François Hollande paid a triumphant visit to this ancient city on Saturday, receiving a rapturous welcome from thousands of people who gathered next to a 14th-century mosque to dance, play drums and chant “Vive la France!” The muezzin, whose singing calls residents to pray five times a day, wore a scarf in the colors of the French flag as he shouted, “Vive Hollande!