Islamist fighters leave central Mali towns
DIABALY, Mali -- French and Malian armored columns rolled into the towns of Diabaly and Douentza in central Mali on Monday after the al-Qaida-linked rebels who had seized them fled into the bush to avoid airstrikes.
France said the advance was a significant step in its campaign to break Islamist fighters' grip over Mali's vast desert north, a presence raising fears of the region becoming an African launchpad for international militant attacks.
"This advance by Mali's army into towns held by their enemies is a clear military success for the government in Bamako and for French forces supporting the operation," French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.
France, which has made 140 bombing sorties since Jan. 11, plans eventually to hand over the military operation to a UN-sanctioned African mission. That deployment has been hampered by a lack of supplies, funds and training.
Diabaly, 220 miles north of the capital, Bamako, had harbored the main cluster of insurgents south of the front-line of Mopti and Sevare.
Douentza, about 500 miles from Bamako along the eastern road to the rebel stronghold of Gao, was a staging post in the rebels' southward advance two weeks ago that prompted France to intervene for fear they would capture the Malian capital. -- Reuters
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NewsdayTV team coverage of Rex Heuermann guilty pleas in Gilgo Beach killings Rex Heuermann of Massapequa Park pleaded guilty to the murders of seven women whose bodies were found along Gilgo Beach and admitted the death of another. NewsdayTV has team coverage from key locations around Long Island.
