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French Leader Visits Timbuktu After His Troops Liberate City French Leader Visits Timbuktu After His Troops Liberate City
(about 3 hours later)
TIMBUKTU, Mali — President François Hollande of France landed on Saturday in the fabled Malian town of Timbuktu, making a triumphant stop six days after French forces parachuted in to liberate the desert city from the rule of Qaeda-linked militants. PARIS — President François Hollande of France arrived Saturday morning for a brief visit to the Malian city of Timbuktu, where he was greeted as a hero just days after French airstrikes and ground forces scattered the Islamists who had controlled the city for months, causing them to melt away into the rugged countryside.
The French started their military operation to oust the extremists three weeks ago and have since taken back the three main northern cities ruled by the rebels for about 10 months. French flags flew in the center of the city and a crowd reported to be in the thousands chanted, “Thank you, France” and “Long live François Hollande” as Mr. Hollande swept into town, accompanied by his ministers of defense, foreign affairs and development and flanked by the Malian president, Dioncounda Traoré.
Mr. Hollande suggested on Friday that during his visit to Mali, a former French colony, he would discuss the reduction of French troop levels on the ground to make way for an African force, led by Mali. He said his visit aims to encourage the Africans to “come join us as quickly as possible and to say that we need this international force.” But French officials and analysts fear that jubilation may shortly give way to increased ethnic tensions and violence — and it remains unclear if French or African forces will be sent to root out the Islamist fighters that have fled from Timbuktu and other northern cities, or when such operations might take place.
Mr. Hollande, who was accompanied by France’s foreign and defense ministers on Saturday, first headed to the Djingareyber Mosque in Timbuktu. “It’s going to take a few more weeks,” Mr. Hollande said, according to news media reports, but he insisted that security responsibilities would soon be handed off to Malian and African forces. “It is not our role to stay,” he said. “Our African friends will be able to do the work that was ours until now.”
Turbaned dignitaries were waiting to greet him at the mosque built between 1325 and 1326. Crowds shouted “Vive la France! Vive Francois Hollande!” as he passed them. France has a force of about 3,500 in the country, and about 3,000 soldiers from several African nations have flowed in since the French intervened last month. European military officers are to begin training the divided and disorganized Malian Army in the coming weeks or months, too, but it is unlikely that the African or Malian forces will be prepared to conduct operations against the militants before the rainy season, which generally lasts through August or so, meaning an offensive into the countryside might have to wait until then.
“If I could have one wish, it would be that the French army stays in the Sahara, that they create a base here,” said Moustapha Ben Essayati, one of those who showed up to greet the French delegation. In the meantime, human rights groups have reported a number of abuses committed by Malian soldiers since the French military intervention began in mid-January, including accusations that soldiers conducted summary executions of civilians suspected of militant ties.
“I’m really scared that if they leave, the jihadists will come back,” he said “If France had not intervened in Konna, we would no longer be talking about Mali.” Since the liberation of Timbuktu and the northeastern city of Gao, there have also been widespread reports of looting and attacks against Arab and Tuareg residents, with black residents accusing them of collaboration with Islamist fighters; some of the groups under attack have reportedly fled.
Roughly 800 French forces took part in the effort to free Timbuktu, including hundreds of paratroopers who parachuted onto nearby dunes. Pressing, too, is the political question of the Tuaregs, some of whom have long called for an independent state in upper Mali. Their uprising last year set the stage for the militant Islamists who initially joined with the Tuaregs and overran the north.
Radical militants last April had seized the town, once a popular tourist destination and revered center of Islamic learning. French officials are pressing Mr. Traoré, the Malian president, to start negotiations quickly with Tuareg rebels, most of whom have now disavowed the Islamists. The majority of Tuaregs, the French believe, will agree to remain in a sovereign Mali with more guarantees of political autonomy, and the French hope that a deal will lead to early national elections; Mr. Traoré this week announced elections for the summer.
They began installing a strict form of Islamic law known as Shariah, amputating the hand of a person suspected of being a thief and whipping women and girls who ventured into public without veils scenes reminiscent of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The French Foreign Ministry has called on the Malian government to open talks with “legitimate representatives” and “non-terrorist-armed groups” in the north, especially the secular Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, known as the M.N.L.A.
“We have just spent 10 months in hell,” Mr. Ben Essayati said. “Everything that demarcates the liberty of man was forbidden to us. We couldn’t smoke, we couldn’t listen to music, we couldn’t wear the clothes we wanted to wear.” Mr. Traoré has said he is open to talks with the M.N.L.A., but only so long as it forgoes its demands for independence. French officials have pressed the group to do so.
France now has 3,500 troops taking part in the Mali operation, in which they are working with Malian soldiers and preparing the way for an African military contingent to help stabilize the vast country. The French-led intervention so far has rapidly forced the retreat of militants out of urban centers in Mali’s north, which had been under the extremists’ control. “Mali must enter a phase of national reconciliation," said Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defense minister, in an interview on France Inter radio last week. The groups involved in that process "must pronounce themselves against terrorism, very clearly, and against any desire for a splitting of Mali’s territory," he said. "This country needs to return to democratic legitimacy. This is not yet the case." Paris would also like the presence of up to 5,000 United Nations peacekeeping troops, officials say, to further underline the international support for an integral Mali and further dilute the French presence.
Mr. Hollande said that another goal of his visit was to push Malian leaders to enter a political dialogue, but he did not elaborate. Part of the reason the armed extremists were able to grab control of Mali’s north was because of a coup last March that threw the once-peaceful country into turmoil. Military considerations remain, though. In Washington, military and counterterrorism officials have applauded the speed and efficiency of the French-led operation, but they have also suggested that the militants may have ceded the northern cities with little resistance in order to prepare for a longer, bloodier counterinsurgency.
"Longer term, and the French know this, it’s going to take a while to root out all these cells and operatives," Michael Sheehan, the Pentagon’s top special operations policy official, told a defense industry symposium on Wednesday.
The Islamist fighters in Mali number between 2,000 and 3,000, officials and analysts estimate. It remains unclear how many have been killed in French airstrikes and ground operations, but a great number remain, likely occupying a network of caves and underground redoubts constructed in the mountains in the far north, near the Algerian border, analysts and officials say.

Steven Erlanger contributed reporting from Munich, and Eric Schmitt from Washington.