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Eleven Islamists fighters were killed and one French soldier was wounded in the latest military operation against militants in Mali’s turbulent desert north, according to security sources.
“The French military operation in the vicinity of Timbuktu has finished. Eleven terrorists were killed, one French soldier was injured, but his life is not in danger,” a French official told the AFP news agency on Friday.
French forces have killed 19 Islamist fighters during security operations in Mali’s northern region of Timbuktu, according to a senior French officer in the West African nation..
Pockets of al Qaeda-linked fighters are still holding out across the north of the country, nearly a year into a French offensive aimed at driving them from the desert region they occupied for most of 2012 after hijacking a rebellion by Tuareg separatists.
The French army has deployed 250 troops in the Central African Republic capital of Bangui in an effort to restore security in the city following a deadly gunfight on Thursday.
“At this stage 250 French soldiers have been deployed in Bangui to secure and patrol,” ministry spokesman Gilles Jarron told a news briefing.
France said on Tuesday it would increase its force in Central African Republic (CAR) to at least 1,000 soldiers once a U.N. resolution is passed next week to try to prevent sectarian violence from destabilising the entire region.
The landlocked nation of 4.6 million people at the heart of Africa has descended into chaos since the Séléka coalition of rebels, many of them from neighbouring Chad and Sudan, ousted President François Bozizé in March.
A Spanish anarchist group has claimed responsibility for setting off an explosive device in a cathedral, saying it was because of the church’s alleged links with Spain’s fascist past.
The Mateo Morral Comando posted the claim on an anarchist Internet forum Thursday, a day after a device exploded in the Basilica of Our Lady of the Pilar in the northeastern city of Zaragoza while people were in the church, which Gen. Francisco Franco visited several times during his dictatorship. No one was injured and little damage was done.