Allied French and Malian forces killed 20 militants in an operation in a part of northern Mali where ISIS operates, a spokesman for the West African nation’s military said on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Allied French and Malian forces killed 20 militants in an operation in a part of northern Mali where ISIS operates, a spokesman for the West African nation’s military said on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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The operation in the district of Akabar, a remote part of a game reserve near the border with Niger and not far from the Malian city of Menaka, was continuing, army spokesman Colonel Diarran Kone said by telephone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cTwenty terrorists have been neutralized,” he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Mali has become increasingly engulfed in violence since a Tuareg uprising in 2012 was hijacked by extremist militants, prompting France to intervene to push them back the following year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Several militant factions and allied criminal gangs have regrouped and set up operations in parts of Mali, from where they have launched attacks across the Sahel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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They also now have a significant presence in swathes of neighbor Burkina Faso, and in some remote parts of Niger.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Despite the deployment of 4,500 French troops meant to contain the violence in the Sahel, it has steadily worsened, and the extremists have succeeded in triggering an ethnic conflict.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Allied French and Malian forces killed 20 militants in an operation in a part of northern Mali where ISIS operates, a spokesman for the West African nation’s military said on Sunday.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Allied French and Malian forces killed 20 militants in an operation in a part of northern Mali where ISIS operates, a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":19397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_108372464460192_245495985553329":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[363,70,85,632],"class_list":["post-7643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","tag-attack","tag-french","tag-isis","tag-terrorist"],"yoast_head":"\n