Pau, FRANCE
France and its five
Sahel partners in Western Africa agreed Monday to step up their military
cooperation to combat the jihadist insurgency threatening the region, agreeing
to place their forces under one umbrella, known as the Coalition for the Sahel.
In a joint statement
following talks in the French city of Pau, the leaders of France, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad and
Mauritania said they would concentrate their efforts on battling the so-called
Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.
The six leaders also
said they hoped the United States would maintain its "crucial
support" in combating the Islamist extremists, after a top US general
confirmed Monday that the Pentagon was weighing a troop reduction in Africa.
Hosting the summit,
President Emmanuel Macron said France would commit an extra 220
soldiers to the anti-jihadist fight, after agreeing to create a joint command structure
with regional states.
"We have no choice.
We need results," the French president told a press conference after
the summit.
In
their statement, Macron's West African counterparts "expressed
their desire for France's continued engagement in the Sahel, and urged a
greater international presence at their side."
Macron had insisted the
Sahel leaders use the occasion to express public support for France's military
presence – by far the largest foreign contribution to the fight against African
jihadists aligned to al Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
Visiting the region
last month, Macron complained of a lack of "clear political condemnation
of anti-French feelings" on the ground.
France already has
4,500 soldiers stationed in the Europe-sized region as part of Operation Barkhane,
supporting poorly-equipped, impoverished local armies that in 2017 launched a
joint anti-jihadist G5 Sahel force.
Despite the French
presence and a 13,000-strong UN peacekeeping force dubbed MINUSMA in Mali, the
conflict that erupted in the north of that country in 2012 has since spread to
its neighbours, especially Burkina Faso and Niger.
Jihadist fighters have
recently stepped up their campaign against military and civilian targets, and
earlier this month, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that
"terrorist groups are gaining ground".
The Pau meeting was
postponed from December after a jihadist attack claimed the lives of 71 Niger
soldiers. And last Thursday another attack by jihadists left 89 Niger soldiers
dead.
Earlier on Monday,
Macron was joined by Mali's Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Burkina Faso's Roch Marc
Christian Kabore, Niger's Mahamadou Issoufou, Mauritania's Mohamed Ould
Ghazouani and Chad's Idriss Deby in observing a minute of silence for seven
soldiers from Pau who died in action in Mali – among 13 French troops killed in
a helicopter crash while hunting jihadists last November.
Paris planned to use
the summit to repeat its call on other Western nations to help step up the
fight.
But in a worrying sign for Paris, Washington’s top military commander said the United States planned to reduce its military presence in Africa.
But in a worrying sign for Paris, Washington’s top military commander said the United States planned to reduce its military presence in Africa.
General Mark Milley,
the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said resources "could be
reduced and then shifted, either to increase readiness of the force in the
continental US or shifted to" the Pacific.
Milley said no
decisions had been made yet and insisted Washington was not pulling out of
Africa completely.
"We're developing
options for the secretary to consider, and we are developing those options in
coordination with our allies and partners," Milley said, adding that
"economy of forces does not mean zero”.
Washington has some
7,000 special forces on rotation in Africa carrying out joint operations with
national forces against jihadists, particularly in Somalia.
Another 2,000 soldiers
conduct training missions in some 40 African countries and take part in
cooperative operations, in particular with France's Operation Barkhane in Mali,
to which they provide mainly logistical assistance. - France24
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