French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, announced Saturday that a French officer was deadly wounded in a helicopter raid “against terrorists” on their way to two cities in the south of Mali. This raid, conducted “around 16:00” as “support for Mali’s army, ended up with destroying several terrorist units” and “stop their advance,” said Le Drian, adding that “in this intense battle, one of our pilots (…) was deadly wounded.”
“He was injured with a light infantry weapon. He was injured and was evacuated to a hospital in Mopti,” he added. President François Hollande expressed, in a statement, “profound emotion” and addressed family and relatives “his sincerest condolences.” French operation was called “Serval” from the name of a small desert cat, said Admiral Edouard Guillaud, Chief of Staff of the Army. He said that there is a command at a “tactical level” based in Mali and a “strategic” command in Paris, along with Defence Minister and President of the Republic.”
“It’s a French operation,” he said, when asked about the presence of German troops. Defense Minister assured that intervention in Mali and the commando operation of DSGE (foreign intelligence) in Somalia, which would have killed the French hostage Denis Allex, are “completely separate event.”
“There are two completely separate operations. The one in Somalia would have occurred earlier, it was designed to take place earlier, but the geographical, technical and meteorology conditions were not met. Therefore there is no link between them, as the French intervention in Mali was, as you know, not scheduled in advance,” said the minister.
France intervened in Mali at the request of Bamako government, following an Islamist offensive in the south this week. The country is still under government control after Islamist groups tried to seize control of the country in the spring of 2012.
U.S. officials have also expressed their support for France’s military intervention in Mali after months of fighting between the government troops and Islamist rebels.
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