A French armored vehicle drove in March 2019 near Hombori, a small town in the central province of Mopti in Mali, where soldiers killed Monday were active.
Photo:
daphné benoit / Agence France-Presse / Getty Images
PARIS – Three French soldiers were killed in Mali on Monday when their vehicle hit a bomb during operations under the French counterterrorism mission in the West African country, the French government said.
France has deployed more than 5,000 soldiers in an area thousands of miles from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to Chad in the east. For the past seven years, armed forces have fought branches of Islamic State, Al Qaeda and other militant groups that roam the region’s isolated villages, threatening government forces in Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and elsewhere.
The soldiers killed Monday carried out operations around Hombori, a small town in Mali’s central province of Mopti, as part of the French army’s Operation Barkhane campaign against Islamist militants in the Sahel region of Africa, authorities said. They identified the soldiers as Tanerii Mauri, Dorian Issakhanian and Quentin Pauchet. The three soldiers were from a military regiment in the town of Thierville-sur-Meuse in eastern France, they said.
Their deaths leave French dead to at least 47 soldiers during the current operation and the short operation before it, which began in 2013. This includes an accident in November 2019 when two French helicopters collided during a mission in northern Mali, involving 13 soldiers perished.
The US military has provided significant support for the French operation, including drone surveillance and other intelligence gathering activities. In 2017, Islamist militants killed four US soldiers stationed in Niger.
Write to Noemie Bisserbe at [email protected]
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