France has named the general who will lead a European mission to the Sahel region, in a move widely seen as intended to speed up military intervention against al-Qaida-linked forces occupying northern Mali.
The announcement came after al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb on Christmas Day issued a four-minute video in which one of the group's leaders, Abou Zeid, criticised France for "not deigning to respond to our offer of dialogue'' over four Frenchmen kidnapped in Niger in September 2010. The video was carried by Mauritanian regional news website Sahara Media.
The men, employed by the uranium industry, are among seven French citizens held by Islamic groups in the desert region. Northern Mali has been occupied since March by groups linked to al-Qaida.
Responding to the video on Wednesday, French foreign ministry spokesman Vincent Floreani called for the release of all French hostages in the Sahel and said "no route is being ruled out'' to secure their freedom.
Meanwhile, French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said European training of 3,000 Malian troops would begin next month in Mopti and Ségou, Mali. Four hundred mainly French troops were due to run "two or three'' six-week training courses, he said.
The European Training Mission will be headed by General François Lecointre, 50, a marine infantryman who has served in Djibouti, the Central African Republic, Rwanda, Gabon and Bosnia.
Last week the United Nations security council approved a resolution for the deployment of 3,300 troops to Mali from other West African countries. But the UN secretary general's special envoy to Mali, Romano Prodi, said the non-Malian troops would not be ready to deploy until September 2013.
The United States would be the main funder of a West African intervention force drawn from the Economic Community of West African States. Le Drian has been calling for the deployment to happen quickly but Washington doubts the desert-fighting capabilities of the Ecowas troops. Diplomats say the US wants non-Ecowas countries, such as Chad and Mauritania, to lead combat operations.
