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The French Foreign Minister, Laurent Fabius, said yesterday it was “probable” that foreign powers would intervene in Mali, where militants linked to al-Qa’ida control significant territory.
“At one moment or another there will probably be the use of force,” Mr Fabius said. He noted that intervention would be African-led but supported by international forces.
UN and Democratic Republic of Congo government troops have bombarded rebel positions in the country’s strife-torn eastern region of North-Kivu.
Three helicopters belonging to the United Nations DR Congo mission - MONUSCO - and two gunships of the DR Congo army (FARDC) were seen and explosions were heard on Thursday around the villages of Nkokwe and Bukima, where rebels from the M23 group are thought to have some positions.
Officials from the UN and the army confirmed attacks were underway, as did the mutineers.
High-ranking al-Shabaab leaders and regular fighters based in the Galgala Mountain range are “rapidly defecting” from the organisation, according to Lieutenant General Muhidin Ahmed Muse, second in command of Puntland police.
Muse declined to disclose how many al-Shabaab members have defected so far, but said the police have already made public some of those currently in custody and will announce others soon.
In recent months, several battles have erupted between Puntland armed forces and al-Shabaab in the Galgala Mountain Range, 60 kilometres south-west of Bosaso.
UN and Democratic Republic of Congo troops are reinforcing a key city in the east of the country to guard against attack by rebels who have seized ground in recent days.
DR Congo authorities and the United Nations fear that the M23 movement, which took one town on the Uganda border last week and forced 600 government troops to flee, may target the provincial capital of Goma, UN officials said.
Rebel fighters in the Democratic Republic of Congo seized control Sunday of more towns in the country’s east, but said they would cede most of their gains to UN peacekeepers and police.
“We have seized Rubare, Rutshuru, Kalengera and Kako,” said rebel leader Colonel Sultani Makenga at Bunagana, the border post with Uganda.
“Even though we have taken these districts, we will withdraw and leave them to MONUSCO and national police,” added Makenga, who was wearing a regular army uniform with a pistol at his hip, surrounded by around 30 well-armed bodyguards.
Some 600 Congolese soldiers have fled into Uganda, following clashes with rebels who have seized a border town.
The Ugandan military said the fleeing troops had been disarmed.
As the rebels took control of the Democratic Republic of Congo side of the town of Bunagana, an Indian peacekeeper was killed, the UN says.
A civil society leader says rebels have seized the strategic village of Jomba in east Congo thus cutting access to a border crossing into Uganda and Rwanda. Congo’s army denied that.
A statement from the Civil Society Coordination for North Kivu province, signed by vice president Omar Kavota, said residents have reported that M23 rebels attacked before dawn Thursday and fought army troops for four hours to dislodge them from the center that also has a large Catholic mission and school. It is the only major village on the road from Bunagana border post to the eastern town of Rutshuru.