Mali prime minister urges French troops to stay

Mali's prime minister urged France Thursday to maintain a military presence in its former colony, as troops began an early withdrawal three months after ousting armed Islamists from the country's north. Diango Cissoko made the plea on a tour of Gao, the first visit to the battle-scarred northern city by a head of government since it was overrun by Al-Qaeda-linked militants more than a year ago. The premier, who was welcomed by locals and military personnel, paid tribute to the French troops who intervened to liberate northern Mali from the armed militias in January. "The Malian nation will be eternally grateful," he said. But he urged the French army to "continue on this path" and stay in Mali, despite Paris pulling out 100 soldiers ahead of schedule this week as part of a phased withdrawal of the majority of its 4,000 troops. France has said it will leave 2,000 soldiers on the ground throughout the summer, reducing its presence by the end of the year to a "support force" of 1,000 fighting alongside a UN-mandated army of some 11,000 troops. The cities of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal fell in March last year to Tuareg rebels who declared independence of the entire desert north before losing control to armed Islamists. French warplanes bombed parts of Gao in January to drive out fighters from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), and the city was recaptured for the Bamako government by French and Malian forces on January 26. Just days later, jihadists managed to infiltrate the city, where they staged the first suicide bombing in Mali's history. French troops fighting alongside the Malian army and other African soldiers have largely succeeded in driving Islamist insurgents from the north but pockets of resistance remain, particularly in the Gao region. A thousand French soldiers have been conducting an operation to destroy MUJAO's logistics infrastructure in a valley north of Gao since Sunday. Parallel to the ongoing military operations, the international community is pushing for a formal process of reconciliation between the deeply divided nation's diverse ethnic communities ahead of presidential elections scheduled for July. Late on Wednesday Interim President Dioncounda Traore designated 30 members of a Dialogue and Reconciliation Commission, including eight representatives of the Tuareg and Arab communities, which have complained about rights abuses by Malian security forces who often equate them with Islamists. The country's main political party, the Alliance for Democracy in Mali, has announced that its candidate for the election will be Dramane Dembele, 46, a mining engineer and former student of Traore, regarded as a close ally. Dembele was arrested in April last year and held for a number of weeks after a military coup that overthrew the regime of president Amadou Toumani Toure and precipitated the fall of the north to Islamists. Many questions remain about the possibility of holding elections within such a tight timescale due to continued instability in the north, which has still not seen the return of some 400,000 displaced people and refugees who fled the war. The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Wednesday it needed an additional 33 million euros ($43.3 million) to help hundreds of thousands of victims of the conflict.