Gao, Mali News

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France's first lady Valerie Trierweiler began a tour of Mali on Thursday with a visit to Gao, one of several northern cities liberated by a French-led military operation against an Islamist occupation.

We are speaking on 15 May while the Mali donor's conference is still ongoing. This country has suffered massive destruction to its cultural heritage by Islamists, before the French intervention.

To date, the ICRC has provided more than 1.5 million litres of fuel to keep power stations running in Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal.

File photo: Chadian soldiers patrol the streets of Gao, in northern Mali. A sixth French soldier has been killed in Mali amid security operations there.

Mali is in the final stages of preparation for an assault on the northern provincial capital of Kidal, the last rebel-held town in the country's north, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

A radical jihadist group in northern Mali that ruled the town of Gao for nearly a year says it was behind the latest suicide attacks.

Senegal President Macky Sall urged the countries of Africa's desert north on Friday to remain vigilant against the threat of Islamism which he said remained despite the French military intervention in Mali.

Members of al Qaeda's Shumukh al Islam forum announced on May 4 that four Egyptian jihadists died in a "martyrdom-seeking" operation in Mali, according to the SITE Intelligence Group.

Mali is in the final stages of preparation for an assault on the northern provincial capital of Kidal, the last rebel-held town in the country's north, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

A leader of Al-Qaeda in North Africa has urged Muslims worldwide to attack French interests in retaliation for France's military intervention against Islamists in Mali, in a video message posted online.

Tuareg leaders in northern Mali have formed a new group which they say will aim to negotiate with the Malian government, as questions linger over the future of the Kidal region.

GAO/BAMAKO, 6 May 2013 - During the rebel takeover of northern Mali in April 2012, many women said they were subjected to rape or sexual assault.

Several militants detonated their explosives as the patrol passed through a village near the city of Gao, Colonel Kassim Goita told Reuters news agency.

The attack, in which four other soldiers were wounded, underscores the challenges facing the country following a French-led military intervention, which succeeded in liberating the three main towns occupied by the al-Qaida-linked groups in northern Mali.

Two Malian soldiers and at least two Islamist militants were killed on Saturday in a suicide attack on an army unit in the north of the country, a senior Malian officer said.

Police in Mali's capital have dismantled a terrorist cell belonging to the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO, three officials confirmed on Tuesday.

Zambian Vice President Guy Scott says South Africa is backward in terms of development, despite the country being Africa's biggest economy, according to a report.

The presence of the cell confirms fears that the jihadist groups, which sprang up last year in northern Mali, have succeeded in travelling past the numerous roadblocks to the country's most populous city.

France's defense minister reaffirmed Friday that his country will keep 1,000 troops in Mali to fight radical Islamic militants even after the arrival later this year of more than 12,000 U.N. peacekeepers.