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ISLAMIST

French jihadist handed over to Paris authorities

A Frenchman held in northern Mali as an Islamist militant is to be questioned by French intelligence services after arriving in Paris on Tuesday, according to security sources.

French jihadist handed over to Paris authorities
French Islamist Gilles Le Guen, known as Abdel Jelil, delivers a videotaped warning to France, the US and UN in October 2012, before a French-led military intervention in Mali. Photo: Sahara Media/AFP

A French Islamist arrested in northern Mali arrived in Paris Tuesday and was handed over to the DCRI intelligence agency for questioning, the source said.

Gilles Le Guen, 58, who goes by the name Abdel Jelil, was detained by French forces near Timbuktu in April. He is believed to have joined the north African militant organisation Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) after moving to Mali with his family.

"He will be questioned. We want to know the path he has taken," Interior Minister Manuel Valls said on Europe 1 radio.

In October, Le Guen appeared in Islamic dress with a gun at his side in a video on a Mauritanian website in which he warned France, the United States and the United Nations against military intervention in Mali to drive Islamists from the country's arid north.

France went on to launch and lead an operation in January to halt an advance by extremists on Bamako and drive them from Mali's northern cities which they had controlled for about nine months.

Le Guen was held prisoner by AQIM for several days in November 2012 and some sources say the group believed he was a spy while others say AQIM picked him up after he intervened to stop Islamists from mistreating women.

Le Guen's Moroccan-born wife and their five children were flown to France two weeks ago.

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MILITARY

Denmark to deploy special forces to Mali in 2022

Denmark plans to deploy about 100 special forces to Mali early next year to boost the elite anti-jihadist European task force Takuba headed by France, the government announced Thursday.

Denmark to deploy special forces to Mali in 2022
A UN aircraft about to depart Denmark for Mali in 2019. File photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

“The terrorist threat posed by the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda remainssignificant,” the foreign and defence ministries said in a joint statement.

“They want to create a hub in West Africa for their extremist regime… and we cannot allow that to happen,” they added.

The Danish contingent, which apart from the special forces will also include top level military officers and surgeons, will be deployed at the beginning of 2022, the ministries said.

Copenhagen also plans to send a military transport plane to assist the UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA.

The French-led Takuba multinational force, launched in March 2020, has already seen Czech, Swedish and Estonian troops deployed in the region but France has struggled to obtain significant support from its larger EU partners.

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