WASHINGTON, D.C. — The United States has supported France in its efforts to fight terrorist in Mali, but until now, it has avoided direct involvement. President Obama is set to spend up to $50 million from the Pentagon’s budget to assist Chad and France in their efforts to combat militants in Mali in North Africa, AP reports.
The United States has been supporting the French military’s operations in northern Mali by providing refueling services for French forces and airlift support for French and Chadian forces.
President Obama issued a memorandum to the Department of Defense and the State Department Monday advising them of his directive to use $50 million. The State Department already had notified Congress of the President’s intent to use Pentagon funds.
France, warning that the control of northern Mali by the militants posed a security threat to Europe, began bombing foreign Islamic terrorists in the country in January as the heavily armed marauders swept southwards towards Mali’s capital Bamako. In the last year, the bandits, with reported links to Islamic extremists and al Qaeda, have systematically destroyed historic religious sites of native Malians and have tried to implement Sharia law.
The fighting took place in the central streets of Gao, where near police headquarters, Malian soldiers with rocket propelled grenades traded fire with radical Islamist combatants widely reported to be from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO. The group has been sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, citing an alliance with Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in 2012. MUJAO is an active militant organisation that broke off from AQIM. more