Mali: ECOWAS preparing military intervention

(Reuters) – West African states are preparing to send troops to Mali as an international campaign to eject al-Qaeda-linked elements who have seized the north of the country gathers pace.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has for months lobbied the United Nations to back its plan to end the nine-month occupation of Mali’s north by the al-Qaeda affiliated groups.

Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara currently holds the rotating chairmanship of ECOWAS.

“The mandate for the deployment was signed by the president yesterday,” said Ali Coulibaly, Ivory Coast’s African Integration Minister.

“Monday by the latest, the troops will be there or will have started to arrive.”

Mali soldiers recaptured a central town on Friday thus halting a southward advance by the al-Qaeda insurgents.

“Things are accelerating … This is not a mission to simply protect Sevare. We need to retake the northern part (of Mali) from the jihadists,” Coulibaly said. “The reconquest of the north has already begun.”

More than two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bulwark of democracy – an image that unravelled in a matter of weeks after a military coup last March that paved the way for the Islamist rebellion.