DPA/Abidjan
France will reorient its peacekeeping force in Ivory Coast towards fighting Islamist terrorism in the Sahel region, President Francois Hollande said in the capital Abidjan yesterday.
The mandate of the Force Licorne – initially sent to Ivory Coast to separate the two sides of the country’s 2002-2007 civil war – has come to an end, Hollande said.
“The mandate will be reoriented and the Licorne will be beefed up and rebadged as a regional force tasked with defeating terrorism and the Jihadist threat particularly in the Sahel region,” the president said.
The Force Licorne is expected to be increased from the current 450 to 800 troops.
It is one aspect of France’s readjustment of its West Africa policy, which is due to include the indefinite presence of about 3,000 troops – in addition to 2,000 troops in the troubled Central African Republic – in the region.
A Jihadist group active in the Sahel region meanwhile claimed the killing of a French soldier in northern Mali earlier this week, the Mauritanian news website Alakhbar reported.
Al-Mourabitoun, headed by Algerian former Al Qaeda military commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar, said Monday’s attack was “a response to the French who pretend to have eliminated Jihadist forces” in northern Mali. The group’s spokesman Abu Aassim el-Mouhajir made the statement on a tape obtained by Alakhbar.
Chief warrant officer Dejvid Nikolic, a member of the French Foreign Legion, was taking part in anti-terrorist operations in the Al Moustarat area when his regiment came under attack, according to the French presidency.
The 45-year-old soldier was among three who were seriously injured when a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle next to French troops conducting surveillance operations about 100km north of the town of Gao.
A total of nine French troops have been killed since Paris went to war against three Islamist groups – Al Qaeda in the Islamic Magbreb, Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) – which threatened to overrun Mali in January 2013.
MUJAO merged with Belmokhtar’s group, The Turbaned Ones, to form al-Mourabitoun nearly a year ago.
The Malian government regained control of most of the country within a month of the French offensive, but insurgents continue to carry out sporadic attacks from their rear bases in the desert.
Around 1,600 French soldiers have stayed behind to lead anti-terrorist operations until Mali’s army – currently being trained by an European Union mission – has developed the capacity to contain the threat.
France’s President Fancois Hollande greets residents at the Place de la Republique in Abidjan. He was in Ivory Coast for a visit yesterday, before con
