PARIS – France’s armed forces said Monday it had carried out a dronestrike for the first time, during operations in Mali at the weekend inwhich it said 40 “terrorists” were killed.
On Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron had announced that Frenchforces had “neutralised” 33 jihadists in the central Malian region ofMopti, in an operation that had started the previous night.
In a statement, the French military command said the drone strike happenedduring a follow-up operation Saturday in which another seven jihadistfighters were killed.
As French commandos were searching the combat zone in Ouagadou forest, 150kilometres (90 miles) from the town of Mopti, “they were attacked by agroup of terrorists on motorbikes,” the statement said.
A Reaper drone and a French Mirage 2000 patrol opened fire to support theground troops, it said.
“This is the first operational strike by an armed drone,” the statementsaid, confirming an earlier report published in the specialist blog LeMamouth.
The strike came just two days after the French army announced it hadfinished testing the remotely-piloted drones for armed operations.
It has three drones, based near Niamey, the capital of Niger.
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The operation at the weekend was in an area controlled by the KatibaMacina, a ruthless Islamist group founded by radical Mopti preacher AmadouKoufa.
Two Malian gendarmes who had been held hostage were freed, and Frenchtroops seized a number of armed vehicles, motorbikes and weaponry,”delivering a very heavy blow” to the jihadists, according to Monday’sstatement.
France previously said it had killed 25 jihadists in two operations in theSahel this month.
Last month, 13 French soldiers were killed in a helicopter crash as theyhunted jihadists in the north of Mali — the biggest single-day loss forthe French military in nearly four decades.
France has a 4,500-member force which has been fighting jihadists in thefragile, sprawling Sahel since 2013. Forty-one soldiers have died. -APP/AFP
