{"id":258800,"date":"2017-12-04T08:58:01","date_gmt":"2017-12-04T13:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/?p=258800"},"modified":"2021-02-13T13:55:03","modified_gmt":"2021-02-13T18:55:03","slug":"malis-leader-says-french-troops-killed-captive-soldiers-instead-of-jihadists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/malis-leader-says-french-troops-killed-captive-soldiers-instead-of-jihadists\/","title":{"rendered":"Mali\u2019s leader says French troops killed captive soldiers instead of jihadists"},"content":{"rendered":"
RAEL\u2019S COMMENT:<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n
All French armies should immediately leave Africa. They are just neo colonialism tools to keep puppet leaders in place, which continue to pay the scandalous colonial taxes to France.<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Up to 11 captive Malian soldiers were killed in a French military raid in Mali, its president said, refuting the claim they were jihadists. It comes days after the France\u2019s Emmanuel Macron said African countries should \u201capplaud\u201d the French troops stationed there.<\/p>\n

The jihadist group targeted in the operation was the first to report the results of the botched raid which took place on October 23. Out of 15 people killed in the raid, carried out by the French military, 11 turned out to be Malian soldiers captured by the militants. While the French General Staff dismissed the group\u2019s account as \u201cpropaganda,\u201d Mali has confirmed the operation was a tragic blunder.<\/p>\n

Malian President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita on Sunday reiterated that \u201ca lot of hostages\u201d were killed in the operation, speaking to the Jeune Afrique magazine. While he did not mention the exact number of victims, the jihadists previously recorded footage with an \u201cappeal\u201d of eleven Malian army hostages said to have been killed in the raid.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were the terrorists\u2019 hostages and there should be no ambiguity about that between our French friends and us,\u201d Keita said. \u201cIt\u2019s regrettable, it can unfortunately happen in these type of operations. We should admit it and not look for reasons that don\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Malian leader\u2019s comments followed an evaluation of the incident by French Defense Minister Florence Parly, who insisted that her military had \u201cvery good reasons to believe\u201d that the victims of the raid were not hostages.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have factual information indicating that they were not hostages. We\u2019ve discussed that very frankly with the Malian authorities. I think I can say that this issue is behind us,\u201d Parly stated in an interview with the Jeune Afrique magazine on November 16.<\/p>\n

The controversy has raised many eyebrows, since the French have never openly admitted the blunder, despite retracting the initial claims about the operation being a \u201csuccess\u201d shortly after the incident. The Malian defense minister, the French ambassador to Mali and a representative of the anti-terrorism Operation Barkhane met to discuss the raid and its outcome at the end of October. The operation commenced in Africa\u2019s Sahel region back in 2014, backed by a 4,000-strong permanent French contingent.<\/p>\n

Following the meeting, a communiqu\u00e9 was issued by the Malian Defense Ministry on October 31, stating that \u201cthe Malian soldiers, detained by terrorists, have died.\u201d The officials admitted mistakes during the staging of the raid as the reconnaissance \u201cfailed to detect the presence of the Malian military\u201d and said that the French military admitted the blame for the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearning from the tragedy, the both parties agreed to improve their communication in order to avoid such deplorable incidents in the future,\u201d the document concluded. Despite these official revelations, the contradicting accounts of the events in Mali went through, fueled by the top officials of the two countries, with France publicly insisting the operation was a \u201csuccess.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Macron has recently added fuel to the fire when talking about French troops stationed in the country\u2019s former African colonies. During his last week\u2019s visit to Burkina Faso, which is also part of the Operation Barkhane, Macron said that Africans owe \u201capplause\u201d to the French military stationed in their countries.<\/p>\n

Macron delivered his comments while speaking in front of students at Ouagadougou University. A female student wondered why the number of French soldiers in her country surpassed the number of exchange students from Burkina Faso in France.<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine that you are a young woman living in Angouleme, France,\u201d Macron said, dodging the question. \u201cShe has never seen Ouagadougou. She may not even have heard of Ouagadougou. And her younger brother fighting alongside French troops died last month to save you. And you? You don\u2019t have a younger brother who is currently fighting on Belgian or French soil.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo not come and talk to me like that of the French soldiers,\u201d Macron told the student. \u201cYou only need to do one thing for the French soldiers: Applaud them!\u201d<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.rt.com\/news\/411916-france-mali-troops-killed\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAEL\u2019S COMMENT: All French armies should immediately leave Africa. They are just neo colonialism tools to keep puppet leaders in place, which continue to pay the scandalous colonial taxes to France.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":297829,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-258800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rael.org\/sl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}