NIGERIA: Nine hundred Nigerian soldiers deploy as part of a West African intervention force in Mali

Record ID: 235908

  • Title: NIGERIA: Nine hundred Nigerian soldiers deploy as part of a West African intervention force in Mali
  • Date: 18th January 2013
  • Summary: KADUNA, NIGERIA (JANUARY 17, 2013) (REUTERS) NIGERIAN TROOPS LEAVING THE PEACEKEEPING TRAINING UNIT IN JAJI CANTONMENT FOR THE AIRPORT NIGERIAN TROOPS ARRIVING KADUNA AIRPORT NIGERIAN AIR FORCE AIRCRAFT WARMING UP TO TAKE OFF WITH TROOPS NIGERIAN TROOPS LOADING THE AIRCRAFT NIGERIAN SOLDIERS UPLOADING BOXES OF AMMUNITION FROM THE TRUCK UNTO THE TARMAC NIGERIAN SOLDIERS SORTING OUT THEIR LUGGAGE BOX WITH INSCRIPTION OF BOMBS WRITTEN ON THEM SOLDIERS BRINGING OUT LUGGAGE FOR FINAL SCREENING GUNS AND OTHER ARMAMENTS LOADED ON THE TARMAC TROOPS LOADING FOOD FLASK ON AIRCRAFT MORE ARMAMENTS BEING LOADED ON BOARD BY TROOPS MORE AMMUNITION BEING ARRANGED ON THE TARMAC TRUNK OF AIRCRAFT CLOSING UP READY FOR TAKE OFF AIRCRAFT TAXING ON THE RUN WAY AIRCRAFT TAKING OFF
  • Embargoed: 2nd February 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Nigeria
  • Country: Nigeria
  • Topics: Crime,International Relations,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA45IWM9954O29BUUMSJ51OW1Z8
  • Story Text: Nigeria sent the first company of a planned deployment of troops on Thursday (January 17) as part of a West African intervention force in Mali.
    The Nigerian forces will join a contingent of around 100 Togolese troops who landed in Bamako on Thursday.
    Nigerien and Chadian forces were massing in Niger, Mali's neighbour to the east.
    The scrambling of the U.N.-mandated African mission, which previously had not been due for deployment until September, will be a boon for France, the former colonial power in Mali.
    French troops, which had moved northwards from Bamako in an armoured column on Tuesday, pinned down some Islamist fighters in the small town of Diabaly. But French forces held back from launching an all-out assault as the insurgents had taken refuge in the homes of civilians, residents said.
    French forces, numbering some 1,400 soldiers, began ground operations on Wednesday (January 16) against an Islamist coalition grouping al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM and the home-grown Ansar Dine and MUJWA militants.
    President Francois Hollande ordered the intervention on the grounds that the Islamists who had taken over the poor West African country's north could turn it into a "terrorist state" which would radiate a threat beyond its borders.
    Hollande has pledged they will stay until stability returns to Mali but, in the first apparent retaliatory attack, al Qaeda-linked militants took dozens of foreigners hostage at a gas plant in Algeria, blaming Algerian cooperation with France.
    A total of 2,500 French troops are expected in Mali but Paris is keen to swiftly hand the mission over to West Africa's ECOWAS bloc, which in December secured a U.N. mandate for a 3,300-strong mission to help Mali recapture its north.
    END
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