French troops advance towards Timbuktu after Gao ‘liberated’

The advances come as French and African land forces also make their way to Gao from neighbouring Niger in a bid to defeat the al- Qaida-linked Islamists who seized control of northern Mali more than nine months ago.

The French military announced on Saturday night that it had liberated the town of Gao, though other officials said the fight to control it was still in progress.

Lt Col Diarran Kone, a spokesman for Mali’s defence minister, said that the forces were patrolling Gao and had maintained their hold over the bridge and airport overnight.

The advance on Gao marked the biggest achievement yet for the French and Malian troops since they began their operation to oust the Islamist radicals two weeks ago. It remains unclear, though, what kind of resistance the forces will face in the coming days.

The French special forces, which had stormed in by land and by air, had come under fire from “several terrorist elements” that were later “destroyed”, the French military said in a statement on its website.

In a later press release entitled “French and Malian troops liberate Gao” the French ministry of defence said they were bringing back the town’s mayor, Sadou Diallo, who had fled to the Malian capital of Bamako far to the west.

However, a city official said that coalition forces so far only controlled the airport, the bridge and surrounding neighbourhoods.

Swooping in under the cover of darkness, the French and Malian forces faced sporadic “acts of harassment” during the day, said Col Thierry Burkhard, a French military spokesman in Paris.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon has said the US will aid the French military with aerial refuelling missions as French ground forces enter the vast areas of northern Mali.