Mali Leader Says Foreigners Battling Insurgents Need Support

(Bloomberg) -- Mali's president urged citizens to support foreign troops struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency he said threatens the country's existence, after protests against the presence of French forces in the West African nation.

“These foreign troops are here because we asked them to, because we need their help,” Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said in a statement on public broadcaster ORTM on Saturday.

The statement came less than a week after 13 French soldiers were killed in an accident involving two helicopters during an operation against Islamist militants in northern Mali. Following one of the worst losses of life for the French armed forces in three decades, protesters marched through the capital, Bamako, demanding France withdraw its forces.

“Mali's at war, our unity is at stake,” Keita said. The war is “killing our civilians and our soldiers, both Malians and foreigners, who are here to help us. We have no reason to bite the hand of those that reach out.”

French troops entered Mali in 2013, pushing back a loose alliance of Tuareg separatist rebels and al-Qaeda-linked militants that had wrested control of the country's north. Violence by affiliates of al-Qaeda and Islamic State is on the rise and spreading south to Mali's more populous central region and across borders to Niger and Burkina Faso.

The French soldiers operate alongside a 15,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping mission, which the UN has described as its most dangerous globally. Both France and the UN are deeply unpopular among Malians who see them as incapable of providing adequate protection.

Nearly 600 civilians were killed during the first six months this year, according to Acled, a group that collects and analyzes data on conflict and is partly financed by the U.S. State Department. This month, an Islamic State-affiliate said it killed almost 100 Malian soldiers in two separate attacks.

We should be “humble and grateful” toward those who are in Mali to help, Keita, 74, said in his address.

To contact the reporter on this story: Katarina Hoije in Abidjan at khoije@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gordon Bell at gbell16@bloomberg.net, Ros Krasny, Linus Chua

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