By Joe Penney

Since French troops first arrived in Mali on January 11, 2013, I have spent all but one week of 2013 covering the conflict there. The first three weeks were probably the most intense I have ever worked in my life, and at times, the most frustrating. French troops hit the ground at a pace which far outstripped most journalists’ ability to cover events, and media restrictions forced journalists to focus on something other than fighting.

GALLERY: IMAGING MALI

Many other journalists have lamented the stringent media restrictions, which at a certain point meant that when the French and Malian took control of Gao, most of the journalists were blocked at a Malian army checkpoint in Sevare, more than 600km (370 miles) southwest. But after the initial push resulting in the seizure of nearly all of Mali’s territory, the jihadist groups opted for a more insurgent-like approach, targeting the Malian army with suicide bombs and surprise attacks in Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal.

It is clear that this war is not like many others. After a month of complaining that we were not given access to the frontline, on one of the first few days I arrived in Gao, the frontline came to us. We had heard lots of gunfire throughout the night and then in the morning, Malian and French forces engaged in a day-long street battle with jihadists who had taken control of several key administrative buildings downtown. The attack on Gao and other attacks, like Thursday’s in Timbuktu, show that the danger in this war is that it can erupt at any time, in any place.

I’ve covered Mali since last year’s coup d’etat, and have watched the country unravel from what Western observers had called “a stable democracy” to a country cut in half, occupied by jihadist rebels, to the French military intervention that has restored most of the landlocked nation’s territory.

While I am grateful to have witnessed up close and in fine detail such an important time in Mali’s history, my sentiments are tempered by a knowledge that the war is far from over. While French, Chadian and Malian forces have swiftly won back a vast territory, Mali’s many political, military, economic and humanitarian problems will not go away tomorrow.

Mali fell apart because it was not able to stand on its own. It was threatened with losing more than half its territory, and only stayed as one country because of a French military intervention. Once the French leave the future is uncertain. Western and Malian politicians seem doomed to repeat mistakes made in the run-up to Mali’s collapse. While Malian citizens are resolute and optimistic, they know the road ahead is not likely to be smooth.

I am reminded of this when I think about the girl walking along a ledge in Gao. She has made it half way to her destination on a ledge with limited room to maneuver, but seems unsure she can continue so she looks back over her shoulder in distress.

Rebels from the pro-autonomy MNLA have been handing out the security documents, stamped in name of the Azawad Republic they proclaimed last year, to drivers of vehicles in and around their northern stronghold of Kidal.

The Tuaregs re-occupied the isolated northern town in January after Islamist rebels holding the town fled an offensive by French troops.

The MNLA had seized control of north Mali, which it calls Azawad, in an April 2012 uprising. It was quickly pushed aside by better-armed Islamist rebels, including al Qaeda’s North African wing AQIM, sparking fears the region would become a launchpad for attacks on the West.

A two-month French-led campaign broke Islamist dominance of northern Mali, sweeping their forces into desert and mountain hideaways.

But, with Paris cooperating with the Tuaregs in the north, Mali’s army has refrained from re-entering Kidal or the surrounding region.

In a sign of a parallel Tuareg administration being put in place, Kidal residents said the MNLA was issuing drivers with papers from their Internal Security Department, complete with a stamp reading “The Azawad State: Unity, Freedom, Security”.

One document, seen by Reuters, specified the type of vehicle, plus the owner’s name, telephone number and address.

“All vehicles within the territory controlled by the MNLA must have this document,” said Moussa Ag Assarid, the rebels’ representative in Europe told Reuters in Paris. “In this way we can differentiate between potential terrorists, drug traffickers and ordinary drivers.”

Ag Assarid said the documents were being issued for security reasons after several suicide bombings in Kidal in recent weeks.

He said the MNLA would take responsibility for the security of the north until negotiations with the government clarified the status of the region.

Interim President Dioncounda Traore, installed after a military coup a year ago, has said he is willing to negotiate with the MNLA provided it drops its demand for independence. He has promised national elections by July 31.

The MNLA has since said it would accept autonomy within Mali but refused to put down its weapons ahead of any talks.

With Paris cooperating with the Tuaregs, the MNLA’s control over Kidal remains a thorn in the relationship between France and Mali.

“No one understands what is going on in Kidal,” said Haminy Belco Maiga, president of Kidal’s regional council, told Reuters in the capital Bamako.

The MNLA’s assertion of authority over the region has angered many Malians, who blame the Tuaregs for plunging their poor, landlocked nation into war.

“They are thieves,” said truck driver Ilias Toure, who was handed a security pass by MNLA checkpoint guards when he returned to Kidal after several months. “We need to find a solution quickly.”

(Additional reporting by David Lewis in Dakar and John Irish in Paris; Writing by David Lewis and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Roger Atwood)

After reviewing ranks of French soldiers near the desolate Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, Le Drian told France 24 television that Paris’ aim was to help “reestablish security in the whole of Mali’s territory”.

“It is after that, progressively, we will hand over to an African mission under a U.N. mandate,” he said. “I came to greet our forces … (and say) that France is proud of its troops and proud of the professionalism of the operation and the way it is working out.”

France said al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels’ seizure of the northern two-thirds of Mali in April posed a risk to the security of Europe and West Africa.

It launched a ground and air operation on January 11 to halt a push southward by Islamist rebels, and has since driven the militants out of major towns of northern Mali.

President Francois Hollande said on Wednesday that France would start to draw down its forces in Mali from April, a month later than previously forecast.

French and Chadian forces have battled die-hard Islamists in the Adrar des Ifoghas, near the Algerian border, for two weeks. Chad has claimed to have killed al Qaeda’s two top leaders in the region, Abdelhamid Abou Zeid and Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

Hollande said on Wednesday that “terrorist leaders” had been killed in the operation, but did not provide further details.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said that DNA testing was being carried out on the bodies of hundreds of dead Islamist fighters.

“To identify the two or three leaders who have been cited, we have to carry out precise tests with DNA and that is what the army services are doing,” he told RTL radio. “We should know fairly quickly.”

France is keen to hand responsibility for operations in Mali to an 8,000-strong African-led force AFISMA, some three-quarters of which has already deployed to the landlocked country.

Paris is pushing for the Mali mission to be given a U.N. peacekeeping mandate once offensive military operations have finished. The Security Council is expected to discuss this in the coming weeks.

However, achieving a durable peace in Mali will require unifying the country’s south, home to the capital Bamako, with the vast desert north, where Tuareg separatists launched a rebellion last year that was hijacked by Islamist fighters.

Many in southern Mali now feel deep resentment toward the northern Tuaregs and light-skilled Arabs, associated with the Islamist fighters, complicating prospects for peace.

President Dioncounda Traore’s government, which aims to hold national elections in July, announced the creation of a Dialogue and Reconciliation Commission on Wednesday, charged with identifying human rights abuses during the conflict and deciding which armed groups were eligible to participate in talks.

(Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako and Vicky Buffery in Paris; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Richard Valdmanis)

A whirlwind seven-week campaign has driven al Qaeda-linked fighters who took over northern Mali last April into mountain and desert redoubts, where they are being hunted by hundreds of French, Chadian and Malian troops.

France’s defence ministry said 26-year-old Corporal Cedric Charenton was shot dead on Saturday during an assault on an Islamist hideout in the desolate Adrar des Ifoghas mountains near Algeria, the third French soldier killed in the campaign.

French army spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said some 15 Islamists were killed in some of the fiercest fighting during the campaign so far but that he could not confirm Chad’s claim that its troops had killed al Qaeda commander Mokhtar Belmokhtar at a nearby camp in the remote Ametetai valley.

“We are facing a very fanatical adversary,” Burkhard said, noting the Islamists were armed with rocket and grenade-launchers as well as machine guns, AK47 assault rifles and heavy weapons. “They are fighting without giving ground.”

The death of Belmokhtar, nicknamed ‘the uncatchable’, has been reported several times in the past. The latest came a day after Chadian President Idriss Deby said Chadian forces had also killed Adelhamid Abou Zeid, al Qaeda’s other senior field commander in the Sahara.

The killing of Belmokhtar and Abou Zeid, if confirmed, would eliminate al Qaeda’s leadership in Mali and raise questions over the fate of seven French hostages thought to be held by the group in northern Mali, an area the size of Texas.

Rudy Attalah, a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official focused on Africa and now head of risk analysis firm White Mountain research, was sceptical about Chad’s claim.

He said Belmokhtar had in the past carefully avoided operating in the same area as Abou Zeid and was known as an elusive operator who shifted through the desert in small, mobile groups of fighters.

“I don’t think they killed him at all,” Atallah said, adding Chad might be seeking to divert domestic attention from its 26 soldiers killed in the operation. “Deby is under a lot of pressure. Announcing these killings redeems his troops.”

‘MR MARLBORO’

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has pledged to avenge the French assault on its fighters in Mali, which Paris said it launched due to fears its former colony could become a launch pad for wider al Qaeda attacks.

Belmokhtar, whose smuggling activities the Sahara earned him the nickname “Mr Marlboro”, became one of the world’s most wanted jihadis after masterminding the raid on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria in which more than 60 people were killed, including dozens of foreign hostages.

Abou Zeid is regarded as one of AQIM’s most ruthless operators, responsible for the kidnapping of more than 20 Western hostages since 2008. He is believed to have killed British hostage Edwin Dyer in 2009 and 78-year-old Frenchman Michel Germaneau in 2010.

France and Mali have said they could not confirm his death.

French radio RFI and Algerian daily El Khabar have reported that DNA tests were being conducted on members of Abou Zeid’s family to confirm whether a body recovered after fighting in Adrar des Ifoghas was indeed the Islamist leader.

Mali’s army, meanwhile, said it had killed 52 Islamist rebels in desert fighting some 70 km (45 miles) east of Gao, northern Mali’s largest town, with support from French helicopters and ground troops.

“There was a big fight with lots of enemy killed,” said Lieutenant Colonel Nema Sagara, the Malian army’s deputy commander in Gao. “Our troops went out to battle and they met them. There are no dead on the Malian side.”

(Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer in Paris and David Lewis in Dakar; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Jon Hemming)

A whirlwind seven-week campaign has driven al Qaeda-linked fighters who took over northern Mali last April into mountain and desert redoubts, where they are being hunted by hundreds of French, Chadian and Malian troops.

France’s defense ministry said 26-year-old Corporal Cedric Charenton was shot dead on Saturday during an assault on an Islamist hideout in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains near Algeria, the third French soldier killed in the campaign.

French army spokesman Colonel Thierry Burkhard said some 15 Islamists were killed there but that he could not confirm Chad’s report that Chadian troops had killed al Qaeda regional leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar at another camp in the Adrar des Ifoghas.

“We are facing a very fanatical adversary,” Burkhard said, noting the Islamists were armed with rocket- and grenade-launchers as well as machine guns, AK47 assault rifles and heavy weapons. “They are fighting without giving ground.”

The death of Belmokhtar, nicknamed ‘the uncatchable’, has been reported several times in the past. The latest came a day after Chadian President Idriss Deby said Chadian forces had also killed Adelhamid Abou Zeid, al Qaeda’s other senior field commander in the Sahara.

The killing of Belmokhtar and Abou Zeid, if confirmed, would eliminate all Qaeda’s leadership in Mali and raise questions over the fate of seven French hostages thought to be held by the group in northern Mali, an area the size of Texas.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has pledged to avenge the French assault on its fighters in Mali, which Paris said it launched due to fears its former colony could become a launchpad for wider al Qaeda attacks.

Belmokhtar, whose smuggling activities the Sahara earned him the nickname “Mr Marlboro”, became one of the world’s most wanted jihadis after masterminding the raid on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria in which more than 60 people were killed, including dozens of foreign hostages.

Abou Zeid is regarded as one of AQIM’s most ruthless operators, responsible for the kidnapping of more than 20 Western hostages since 2008. He is believed to have executed British hostage Edwin Dyer in 2009 and 78-year-old Frenchman Michel Germaneau in 2010.

France and Mali have said they could not confirm his death.

French radio RFI and Algerian daily El Khabar have reported that DNA tests were being conducted on members of Abou Zeid’s family to confirm whether a body recovered after fighting in Adrar des Ifoghas was indeed the Islamist leader.

Mali’s army, meanwhile, said it had killed 52 Islamist rebels in desert fighting some 70 km (45 miles) east of Gao, northern Mali’s largest town, with support from French helicopters and ground troops.

“There was a big fight with lots of enemy killed,” said Lieutenant Colonel Nema Sagara, the Malian army’s deputy commander in Gao. “Our troops went out to battle and they met them. There are no dead on the Malian side.”

(Additional reporting by Catherine Bremer in Paris; writing by Daniel Flynn; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

The latest Chadian fatalities came in an area of the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains where 13 Chadian soldiers were killed in clashes on Friday that centered around what one senior commander said was a rebel base of “significant importance”. At least 93 rebels have been killed in fighting in the area so far, Chad’s army said.

The casualties, the heaviest by African troops since a campaign against al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels began six weeks ago, highlight risks that the French-led coalition becomes entangled by guerrilla war as it helps Mali’s weak army.

“In the course of the clean-up operations, the bodies of 28 other terrorists were found in the combat zone … Ten more of our soldiers fell,” said a statement from the army general staff read on state radio.

“The final toll from the clashes … and clean-up that followed is as follows: 93 terrorists … on the side of the enemy. We deplore the deaths of 23 soldiers and 30 wounded,” the statement said.

France intervened in its former West African colony last month to stop a southward offensive by Islamist fighters who seized control of the north last April.

After quickly driving the rebels out of major urban areas, France and its African allies have focused on the remote northeast mountains and desert – an area the size of France – that includes networks of caves, passes and porous borders.

They believe some of eight French hostages held by al Qaeda-linked groups are being kept in the area.

Rebels have continued to stage bombings and raids mainly targeting Mali’s poorly trained and equipped army in northern cities – including their former strongholds of Gao and Kidal.

In Gao, which has seen a series of attacks over two weeks, French and Malian forces showed journalists arms and ammunition seized since the start of operations to retake the north.

Laid in blazing sun at Gao’s airport, now a base for the French, were hundreds of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition, from old Russian rockets to shiny Chinese bullets.

“This is a campaign to finish off the jihadists once and for all”,” the head of Malian forces Colonel Didier Dacko said. “It’s when the shooting ends, when the population is no longer reporting movements by the jihadists, those will be the signs that the situation has improved”

Troops from neighboring African nations, including 2,000 Chadians, have deployed to Mali and are meant to take over leadership of the operation when France begins to withdraw forces next month.

(Additional reporting by Emmanuel Braun in Gao; Writing by Joe Bavier; Editing by Jason Webb)

Reuters reporters in Gao in the country’s desert north said French and Malian forces fired at the mayor’s office with heavy machineguns after Islamists were reported to have infiltrated the Niger River town during a night of explosions and gunfire.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told a news conference in Brussels that Gao was back under control after clashes earlier in the day.

“Malian troops supported by French soldiers killed five jihadists and the situation is back to normal,” he said.

In Kidal, a remote far north town where the French are hunting Islamists, residents said a car bomb killed two. A French defence ministry source reported no French casualties.

French troops dispatched to root out rebels with links to al Qaeda swiftly retook northern towns last month. But they now risk being bogged down in a guerrilla conflict as they try to help Mali’s weak army counter bombings and raids.

“There was an infiltration by Islamists overnight and there is shooting all over the place,” Sadou Harouna Diallo, Gao’s mayor, told Reuters by telephone earlier in the day, saying he was not in his office at the time.

Gao is a French hub for operations in the Kidal region, about 300 km (190 miles) northeast, where many Islamist leaders are thought to have retreated and foreign hostages may be held.

“They are black and two were disguised as women,” a Malian soldier in Gao who gave his name only as Sergeant Assak told Reuters during a pause in heavy gunfire around Independence Square.

Six Malian military pickups were deployed in the square and opened fire on the mayor’s office with the heavy machineguns. Two injured soldiers were taken away in an ambulance.

French troops in armoured vehicles later joined the battle as it spilled out into the warren of sandy streets, where, two weeks ago, they also fought for hours against Islamists who had infiltrated the town via the nearby river.

Helicopters clattered over the mayor’s office, while a nearby local government office and petrol station was on fire.

A Gao resident said he heard an explosion and then saw a Malian military vehicle on fire in a nearby street.

Paris has said it plans to start withdrawing some of its 4,000 troops from Mali next month. But rebels have fought back against Mali’s weak and divided army, and African forces due to take over the French role are not yet in place.

Islamists abandoned the main towns they held but French and Malian forces have said there are pockets of Islamist resistance across the north, which is about the size of France.

CAR BOMB

Residents reported a bomb in the east of Kidal on Thursday.

“It was a car bomb that exploded in a garage,” said one resident who went to the scene but asked not to be named.

“The driver and another man were killed. Two other people were injured,” he added.

A French defence ministry official confirmed there had been a car bomb but said it did not appear that French troops, based at the town’s airport, had been targeted.

Earlier this week, a French soldier was killed in heavy fighting north of Kidal, where French and Chadian troops are hunting Islamists in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, which border Algeria.

Operations there are further complicated by the presence of separatist Tuareg rebels, whose rebellion triggered the fighting in northern Mali last year but were sidelined by the better-armed Islamists.

Having dispatched its forces to prevent an Islamist advance south in January, Paris is eager not to become bogged down in a long-term conflict in Mali. But their Malian and African allies have urged French troops not to pull out too soon.

(Additional reporting by Emanuel Braun in Gao, Adama Diarra in Bamako, David Lewis and John Irish in Dakar and Adrian Croft in Brussels; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Jason Webb and Roger Atwood)

Reuters reporters in Gao in the country’s desert north said French and Malian forces fired at the mayor’s office with heavy machineguns after Islamists were reported to have infiltrated the Niger River town during a night of explosions and gunfire.

In Kidal, a remote far north town where the French are hunting Islamists, residents said a car bomb killed two. A French defense ministry source reported no French casualties.

French troops dispatched to root out rebels with links to al Qaeda swiftly retook northern towns last month. But they now risk being bogged down in a guerrilla conflict as they try to help Mali’s weak army counter bombings and raids.

“There was an infiltration by Islamists overnight and there is shooting all over the place,” Sadou Harouna Diallo, Gao’s mayor, told Reuters by telephone, saying he was not in his office at the time.

Gao is a French hub for operations in the Kidal region, about 300 km (190 miles) northeast, where many Islamist leaders are thought to have retreated and foreign hostages may be held.

A Malian soldier in Gao who gave his name only as Sergeant Assak told Reuters he had seen at least seven Islamist gunmen.

“They are black and two were disguised as women,” he said during a pause in heavy gunfire around Independence Square.

Six Malian military pickups were deployed in the square and opened fire on the mayor’s office with the heavy machineguns. Two injured soldiers were taken away in an ambulance.

French troops in armored vehicles later joined the battle as it spilled out into the warren of sandy streets, where, two weeks ago, they also fought for hours against Islamists who had infiltrated the town via the nearby river.

Helicopters clattered over the mayor’s office, while a nearby local government office and petrol station was on fire.

A Gao resident said he heard an explosion and then saw a Malian military vehicle on fire in a nearby street.

Paris has said it plans to start withdrawing some of its 4,000 troops from Mali next month but the rebel fightback comes as Mali’s army remains weak and divided and African forces due to take over the French role are not yet in place.

Islamists abandoned the main towns they held but French and Malian forces have said there are pockets of Islamist resistance across the north, which is about the size of France.

CAR BOMB

Residents reported a bomb in the east of Kidal on Thursday.

“It was a car bomb that exploded in a garage,” said one resident who went to the scene but asked not to be named.

“The driver and another man were killed. Two other people were injured,” he added.

A French defense ministry official confirmed there had been a car bomb but said it did not appear that French troops, based at the town’s airport, had been targeted.

Earlier this week, a French soldier was killed in heavy fighting north of Kidal, where French and Chadian troops are hunting Islamists in the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains, which border Algeria.

Operations there are further complicated by the presence of separatist Tuareg rebels, whose rebellion last year kick-started fighting in northern Mali but were sidelined by the better-armed Islamists.

Having dispatched its forces to prevent an Islamist advance south in January, Paris is eager not to become bogged down in a long-term conflict in Mali. But their Malian and African allies have urged French troops not to pull out too soon.

(Additional reporting by Emanuel Braun in Gao, Adama Diarra in Bamako, David Lewis and John Irish in Dakar; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Jason Webb)

For nearly two weeks, French jets and helicopters have been hitting carefully selected targets around rebel-held Malian towns such as Gao and Timbuktu, while African troops gather for a planned ground offensive against the Islamist forces.

Last week’s bloody seizure of a gas plant in neighboring Algeria by Islamist guerrillas opposing the French action in Mali – in which at least 37 foreign hostages were killed – heightened fears in Africa and the West that Mali’s north could become a launchpad for international attacks by al Qaeda.

After halting a surprise Islamist offensive southwards towards Mali’s capital Bamako, French ground troops and Malian army soldiers backed by French armored vehicles are securing locations recaptured from the rebels in the last few days.

At one of these, Diabaly, a town of mud-brick homes 350 km (220 miles) north of Bamako, jubilant residents welcomed foreign reporters and showed them munitions abandoned by the fleeing Islamist fighters, including several six-foot long shells.

Charred rebel pick-up trucks destroyed by the French air strikes were also visible amid the mango trees.

The U.N.-mandated intervention in Mali was originally conceived as “African-led, African-owned”, but with the Malian army in disarray and African neighbors scrambling to deploy troops, France has taken the lead in the operation.

Amid widening international support for the Mali operation, the European Union is preparing a 450-member mission to help train the Malian army while the United States and European governments are helping fly in French troops and equipment.

Voicing U.S. backing, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described the internationally-backed intervention in Mali as a response to “a very serious, ongoing threat” posed by the regional affiliate of al Qaeda and its local allies.

“We are in for a struggle but it is a necessary struggle. We cannot permit northern Mali to become a safe haven,” she said in Washington, referring to Malian elements of al Qaeda as not only a “terrorist syndicate” but also a “criminal enterprise”.

African governments, critical in the past of what they saw as meddling by former colonial powers like France, are now embracing the French-led action as a way to avoid a broadening Islamist insurgency in Africa.

“All of the African continent, all its heads of state, are happy about the speed with which France acted and with France’s political courage,” African Union Chairman Thomas Boni Yayi, who is president of Benin, said during a visit to Germany.

Nigeria, Africa’s No. 1 oil producer, is contributing 1,200 troops to the Mali intervention force, even though it is struggling to control a bloody Islamist insurgency at home by the sect Boko Haram. U.S. and African military officials say Boko Haram has links with al Qaeda and its allies in Mali.

“If it is not contained, definitely it will spill into West Africa… It is one of the reasons we have to move fast,” Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan told a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

South African President Jacob Zuma, who leads Sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest economy, said the Mali situation would figure high on the agenda of an African Union summit this weekend.

“It is not just Mali. It is Chad, it is Niger, it is Mauritania,” Zuma told Reuters in an interview in Davos, adding that South Africa could play a role in Mali if asked to by the African Union as the continent’s top representative body.

TIMBUKTU “GADDAFI HOUSE” HIT

Among the rebel targets in Timbuktu hit by French airstrikes in the last few days was a house built there by the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, which Islamist militants were using as a base, local residents said.

The Islamist alliance in the north, which groups al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Malian militant groups Ansar Dine and MUJWA, holds the major towns of Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal.

Mali’s state radio reported that, besides the Gaddafi house in Timbuktu, rebel fuel and weapons depots around the fabled Saharan trading town were also bombarded in the French raids.

With these keeping the rebels on the defensive, military experts say the swift and effective deployment of African ground forces is crucial to sustain the momentum of an offensive against the Islamists and prevent them melting away into empty desert or rugged mountains near the Algerian border.

“The recovery of Mali’s sovereignty is under way,” French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told France 24 TV, adding that the African force for Mali, known as AFISMA and expected to number more than 5,000, was being deployed.

Around 1,600 of its members were already in the West African state, a French official said.

These came so far from Benin, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo and Niger. Chad, a Central African state whose troops are experienced in desert warfare, was also moving troops towards Mali’s border in neighboring Niger to assist in the mission.

Ivory Coast said on Wednesday it was sending a 500-strong logistical support contingent to Mali, but no combat troops. Ghana and Guinea were also contributing to the African force, French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said.

The European Union’s military training mission in Mali (EUTM) would be launched in mid-February and led by a French general, but would have no combat role.

WHO WILL PAY?

International donors are due to meet in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on January 29 to discuss the African military operation in Mali, and France said they would be asked to provide about 340 million euros ($452 million.

France’s Le Drian told France 24 that the 12-day-old French military operation in Mali had cost 30 million euros so far.

Despite the widespread declarations of support for the Mali intervention, some analysts questioned whether western powers like the United States were following up on their words with sufficient concrete action and support to ensure its success.

“There is not much money for Africa… It’s a low priority” for Barack Obama’s U.S. administration, said Vicki Huddleston, who served as U.S. ambassador for Mali in 2002-2005.

“We have to come up with a really serious ‘boots on the ground’ strategy,” she told Reuters, adding that Islamist militants in North and West Africa were “looking for their next target”.

(Additional reporting by Emma Thomasson and Ben Hirschler in Davos, Stephen Brown in Berlin, Tiemoko Diallo in Bamako, Andrew Quinn in Washington, John Irish and Elizabeth Pineau in Paris, Joe Bavier in Abidjan, David Lewis, Daniel Flynn and Pascal Fletcher in Dakar; Writing by Pascal Fletcher; Editing by Tom Pfeiffer)

By Joe Penney

When Guinea-Bissau is in the news, it’s almost always for the wrong reasons: coups d’état, assassinations, drug smuggling and extreme poverty.

Journalists like to cite the fact that since the tiny West African country switched to a multi-party system in 1995, no president has completed a full term. The country is often labeled a “narco-state” because of South American drug cartels using its islands and mainland as a waypoint for trafficking cocaine to Europe, even though its neighbors are dealing with the same problems.

But this reputation is rarely put into its historical context. After the Portuguese created what is modern-day Guinea-Bissau in 1890 when European powers divided the African continent at the Berlin Conference, they fought a 49-year-war of pacification against the local African communities resisting their rule.

To gain its independence from an extremely violent Portuguese rule, the anti-colonial rebel group PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde), fought a brutal liberation war from 1960 to 1974.

The independence war was fought between the nationalist PAIGC and the Portuguese and their 27,000-strong colonial army staffed by native Bissau-Guineans. Much of the Portuguese colonial violence was outsourced to the Bissau-Guinean colonial army, meaning that the independence war pitted Bissau-Guineans against their own compatriots.

Guinea-Bissau’s independence victory over the Portuguese military reverberated across the continent and back in Portugal. Commanders angry with Antonio Salazar’s fascist government’s handling of the colonial wars overthrew him in 1974 and replaced him with the former military governor of Portuguese Guinea. This paved the way for Portugal’s modern democracy, and the independence of other Portuguese colonies Cape Verde, Angola and Mozambique.

After independence, hopes for a better life were high, but mismanagement, political infighting and the legacy of violence disrupted efforts to rebuild the country. After a few years of peace, elements of the PAIGC took their revenge against the Bissau-Guineans who fought for the Portuguese and massacred hundreds at a time.

Tension among rivaling politicians and the military grew to a boiling point in 1998, when the country erupted in civil war for a little less than a year.

Today, “the country is ‘managed’ by a cycle of violence – which is an extension of prior conflicts, conflicts lived during the national liberation war,” said historian and former independence fighter Mario Cissoko.

In total, the country has been officially at war for 65 of the 122 years since its colonial creation. In between that time, a low-level conflict has been waged. The extreme violence has scarred every citizen of the country.

At 18-years-old, after the Portuguese army killed Djenabu Sambu’s brother and imprisoned her mother, Sambu’s friends convinced her to join Guinea-Bissau’s anti-colonial rebels.

After independence, Sambu and her comrades had high expectations from its wartime leaders, whose accomplishments on the battlefield showed that they were capable of accomplishing a lot for their country.

“Independence was good because we got rid of the Portuguese,” she said. “But we are still working. Everyday we see things we don’t want to see.”

Guinea-Bissau is haunted by its history. The wars have ended but the ghosts of conflicts past still hang over the political scene today, stopping a young population with ambition and talent from moving forward.

On the island of Bolama, where the Portuguese first built their colonial capital, pastel-colored colonial mansions and state houses are left to crumble among the palm trees. Only a few goats and bats inhabit the buildings, but the structures still dominate the landscape of the island and of the people.

“You chase out the Portuguese colonizers, you condemn them, you say they’re bad, they kill, they imprison, they take our African resources. And then after you take power you do worse than them,” the historian Cissoko said.

“It’s not sufficient to have a flag, to have police, a government. Independence is much more than that,” he added.

Today, a transitional body — installed after a military coup ended the previous government and cancelled presidential elections in April — governs Guinea-Bissau.

Faced with economic paralysis and a lack of international recognition of his government, the president Manuel Serifo Nhamadjo argued that Guinea-Bissau’s problems need to be properly diagnosed before they can be addressed.

“Since 1995, why has no president finished a mandate? We need to find out why. Why have there been so many assassinations and no justice up to now?… Why is there so much hate in Guinea-Bissau?” Nhamadjo said to me in an interview.

“These things have been happening a long time,” he said before adding, “If we don’t take time to stop and think, we are just prolonging these problems.

For Adja Satu Camara Pinto, a former independence fighter who is now the president’s chief-of-staff, “the people have lost the hope of the revolution.”

“People will die and the histories will disappear. A nation needs to identify with its history, it needs to value its history, it needs to know its history,” she said.