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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...

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...

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...

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...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is on a five-day trip overseas to increase pressure on Mali's al-Qaida-linked rebels and help Balkan nations end long-simmering ethnic and political disagreements.</p>

The United States military is preparing to establish a drone base in northwest Africa so that it can increase surveillance missions on the local affiliate of Al Qaeda and other Islamist extremist groups that American and other Western officials say pose a growing menace to the region. For now, officials say they envision flying only unarmed surveillance drones from the base, though they have not ruled out conducting missile strikes at some point if the threat worsens. If the base is approved, the most likely location for it would be in Niger, a largely desert nation on the eastern border...

Military Pact With Niger Brings American Forces Closer to Conflict in Mali. The U.S. signed an agreement Monday with the West African country of Niger that clears the way for a stepped-up American military presence on the edges of the conflict in neighboring Mali. The U.S. and France are moving to create an intelligence hub in Niger that could include a base, near Mali's border, for American drones that could monitor al Qaeda-linked militants in Mali's vast desert north, U.S. officials said. The moves show the extent to which the U.S. and France are girding for what could be an...

Islamist insurgents retreating from the ancient Saharan city of Timbuktu have set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts, some dating back to the 13th century, in what the town's mayor described as a "devastating blow" to world heritage. ... The manuscripts survived for centuries in Timbuktu on the edge of the Sahara hidden in wooden trunks, boxes beneath the sand and caves. The majority are written in Arabic, with some in African languages, and one in Hebrew, and cover a diverse range of topics including astronomy, poetry, music, medicine and women's rights. The oldest dated from...

DIABALY, Mali — When France entered the world’s newest war against terrorism, French officials boldly declared that the ragtag radical Islamists they planned to oust from northern Mali would scatter in the face of a modern fighting force. But two weeks later, reality has sunk in. Even as they bombard Islamist targets, the French troops are facing a military landscape that is far more complicated than it appeared at the outset, raising questions about France’s long-term goals. With no clear exit strategy, the French are encountering a host of problems: Mali’s interim government is weak, its military is disorganized, and...

France's attack on Islamic extremists in Mali this month is exposing major strains in the Western world's security strategy. As the French assault gained steam in West Africa, France sought help from its allies—only to find that the U.S. and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization states either weren't ready or couldn't offer much. Canada and the U.K. quickly ponied up three cargo planes, two of which broke down en route. By far the biggest breakdown, however, played out between the U.S. and France, as Washington sent what Paris saw as mixed messages about U.S. levels of commitment to taking on...

Two Nigerian soldiers were killed and five others seriously injured in a 19 January attack on a military detachment heading for deployment in Mali, as part of Nigeria's contribution to UN-sanctioned African intervention force to reclaim northern Mali from Islamists, military officials told IRIN. The soldiers from a military unit based in the southern Nigerian city of Ibadan, were on their way to the town of Kachia in northern Kaduna state to prepare for deployment to Mali, when they were attacked near the city of Okene in central Kogi state, Nigerian army spokesman Major General Bola Koleoso told IRIN. "We...

SEGOU, Mali (AP) — American planes transported French troops and equipment to Mali, a U.S. military spokesman said Tuesday, as Malian and French forces pushed into the Islamist-held north. Douentza had been held by Islamist rebels for four months, located 190 kilometers (120 miles) northeast of Mopti, the previous line-of-control held by the Malian military in Mali's narrow central belt. The Islamist fighters have controlled the vast desert stretches of northern Mali, with the weak government clinging to the south, since a military coup in the capital in March last year unleashed chaos. French and Malian troops arrived in Douentza...

Oil-rich gulf state Qatar has a vested interest in the outcome of the north Mali crisis, according to various reports that have been picked up by French MPs, amid suspicion that Doha may be siding with the rebels to extend its regional influence. Since Islamist groups exploited a military coup in the Malian capital of Bamako in early 2012 to take control of the entire north of the country, accusations of Qatari involvement in a crisis that has seen France deploy troops have been growing. Last week two French politicians explicitly accused Qatar of giving material support to separatists and...

There are now some 2,000 French troops in Mali France's military aim in Mali is its "total reconquest", French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has said. "We will not leave any pockets" of resistance, he told French television. France has sent in 2,000 troops to help Malian forces fight Islamist militants who now control the northern half of the country. Mr Le Drian said the former Islamist stronghold of Diabaly had not yet been retaken, even though the militants withdrew from the town two days ago. However, he added that "everything points to a favourable evolution of the situation in...

Sevare, Mali (CNN) -- The Malian military has gained control of the central town of Diabaly, Mali, a key advance in the battle against Islamist militants in the north. The country's forces retook the town without ground assistance from French troops, a military spokesman said. The French military confirmed that it provided only air support. French officials later said Malian forces had managed to push the Islamists into the forest beyond Diabaly. But battles in the region continued to rage. Rebel control over Diabaly was one of the chief concerns to Mali and France in trying to stop the Islamists'...

(Reuters) - French troops advanced cautiously toward northern Mali on Sunday amid fears of ambush by al Qaeda-linked fighters, while its fighter jets pounded the Islamists' strongholds in the desert near Timbuktu. In the central Malian town of Diabaly, seized by Islamist fighters on Monday, the wreckage of the Islamists' charred pick-up trucks lay abandoned among the mud-brick buildings, television images showed.Residents of the town, some 350 km (220 miles) from the capital Bamako, said Islamists had fled into the bush after French airstrikes.The commanders of French and Malian forces, who set up their operations center in the nearby town...

Algeria's special forces stormed a natural gas complex in the middle of the Sahara desert on Saturday in a "final assault" aimed at ending a four-day-old hostage crisis, the state news agency reported. It said 11 militants and seven hostages were killed. The report, quoting a security source, didn't say whether any hostages or militants remained alive, and it didn't give the nationalities of the dead. It said the army was forced to intervene after a fire broke out in the plant.

Emboldened by America’s projection of weakness abroad, Islamists apparently linked to al-Qaeda reportedly continue to hold about 40 foreign hostages including seven Americans seized Wednesday at a natural gas field in Algeria.At press time, conflicting media reports had been emerging from the region. Some claimed that the hostages have been freed; others, that several hostages have been killed. The mass kidnapping at a BP (formerly British Petroleum) gas site near the Libyan border, which may very well have been accomplished with U.S.-supplied weapons left over from the ouster of the late Muammar Qaddafi in Libya, seems to be a...

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Friday militants who attacked the United States and its citizens will hunted down, in the first comments by a senior U.S. official on a hostage attack by Islamist militants in Algeria. … “Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere. Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide,” he said. …

The Malian army, supported by French forces, has retaken control of the central town of Konna which fell to rebel fighters advancing from the north earlier this month and sparked France's military intervention. "We have wrested total control of Konna after inflicting heavy losses on the enemy," an army statement said on Friday. A spokesperson from the al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al-Dine rebel group confirmed to Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow that its fighters pulled out of the town. "They withdrew from the town after [incurring] huge casualties in the fighting in the town. They say they will continue their fighting in other...