UNITED NATIONS – French President Francois Hollande called Wednesday for the Security Council to approve African military intervention in Mali “as quickly as possible.”
France and the African Union would provide logistical support to a West African-led bid to recover northern Mali from Al-Qaeda-linked Islamists now in control there. Hollande said at a U.N. ministerial meeting on Africa’s troubled Sahel region that “there is no question” of negotiating with terrorists.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Mali’s security forces need help, and said African-led interventions in Somalia and the Ivory Coast were successful. Clinton said Mali’s “chaos and violence” threatens the entire region’s stability.
“We all know too well what is happening in Mali, and the incredible danger posed by violent extremists imposing their brutal ideology, committing human rights abuses, destroying irreplaceable cultural heritage,” Clinton said. “We have to train the security forces in Mali, help them dislodge the extremists, protect human rights, and defend borders.”
Mali’s interim government has asked a West African bloc for a military intervention to root out Islamists who overran northern Mali after a March coup. The Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, is awaiting Security Council approval before sending in about 3,000 troops with aerial support.