The lights of the French military base in the northern Malian city of Gao fade into the distance as a convoy of vehicles winds its way up the nearby Batal plateau to stop militants from using the area to fire rockets at the town, reports Bloomberg.
The mission of the French troops on the plateau was to install a solar-powered system to detect the origin of rockets that strike Gao, as on April 5 when a young woman was killed in the courtyard of her home. While French and United Nations forces have weakened the insurgents, they’ve been unable to extinguish their threat in Africa’s third-biggest gold producer.
“They avoid direct confrontation with our forces,” said Colonel Bruno Helluy, the deputy commander of the French force in Gao. “They’ve gradually lost the ability to inflict damage in the past months, even if they still manage to carry out attacks.”
As peace talks drag on between some rebel groups and the government in the capital, Bamako, about 950 kilometers (590 miles) southwest of Gao, the attacks have increased in recent weeks. Mali and the supporting French and United Nations forces are facing insurgents who employ bombings and rocket attacks similar to those carried out by the Islamist militant movements Boko Haram in Nigeria and Somalia’s al-Shabaab.
The insurgents have carried out as many attacks in the Gao region in the past three months as in all of last year, Anouk Desgroseilliers, spokeswoman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Mali, said in an interview in Bamako.
A suicide bomber killed three civilians and injured 16 in the Gao region on April 15 while targeting a UN military camp. The attack was claimed by the al-Mourabitoune group, led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the one-eyed former Algerian soldier accused by the U.S. of planning a 2013 attack on an Algerian gas facility that left dozens of hostages dead, including three Americans.
Three days later, two drivers for the UN were assassinated when their convoy was stopped outside Gao, and on April 20 another UN driver was killed 30 kilometers from the city.
“Attacks on convoys and vehicles happen at least two or three times a week in the north,” Radhia Achouri, spokeswoman for the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as Minusma, said by phone from Bamako.
The French and the UN sent military forces to Mali in 2013 to regain control of the north after Islamist militants invaded the region. France has about 1,000 troops at their base in Gao, while there are 3,200 UN soldiers and 340 UN policemen in the region.