Heard much about the fighting in Mali?
Nada. Nothing. Not a peep.....And the French are getting it done and rather quickly too. A question that is never asked by a dependent news media and rarely debated by General's seeking the spotlight is whether the media helps or hurts a war effort.
I think it can be argued that one of the reasons for the success of Special Operations is in part due to the fact that they can act in private.
No news media to coddle. Protect. Answer to.
Perhaps that's one of the main lessons from the French war in Mali. If you want to win, leave the news media in the "rear with the gear".
Actually it seems a limited attempt at counter-attack happened in the middle of the night some 48h ago around Gao, but was repulsed without any losses.
ReplyDeleteFrench forces seems to have started going outside of the main recaptured cities in order to clean more villages, and see some ennemy resistance. Currently the press' estimates on the ennemy death toll is about 200 terrorists, with still a single French dead (a light helicopter pilot hit in the femoral artery by a lucky AK-47 shot during the first day of operation).
French forces have now 4000 men and around 200 land vehicules on the ground, about 20 planes (fighers/bombers, recon, ...) and around the same amount of helicopters operating locally.
One of their best asset currently is their P-3C Orion equivalent, the Atlantic 2, which is used as a recon asset with the ability to drop laser guided 250kg bombs on those they catch unaware.
They are about to ferry a new lot of vehicules to the area, using a civilian transport out of Toulon naval base (seen by spotters yesterday).
Negociations are underway with non religious Tuaregh rebels for a negociated peace, they already cooperate with French forces on the ground. Beside the strong and very experienced Tchad force, under the command of that country's president's son, is pushing along with the French to hunt down the terrorists hidding in the northern wilderness.
Those are, at least, the publicly availlable informations.