Military Review English Edition November-December 2014 | Page 88

March 1991, before handing over power to democratically elected
president Alpha Oumar Konaré in 1992. He was nevertheless elected
president in 2002 with sixty-four percent of the vote, and in 2007 with
seventy-one percent.
4. Ibid, 72. The group now known as Al-Qaida in the Islamic
Maghreb (formerly Groupe Salafiste de Prédication et de Combat)
took 33 European tourists as hostages in February 2003 and released
them 18 August 2011 (one Austrian tourist died of exhaustion during
captivity). Other French hostages were taken in 2010, 2011, and
2012; some have been released, others have died in captivity or
been killed, and at least one remains captive.
5. United Nations Security Council Resolution 2085, 20 December 2012, http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/
RES/2085%20%282012%29.
6. For more information about the European Union Training
Mission, see their website, “EUTM-Mali,” http://www.eeas.europa.eu/
csdp/missions-and-operations/eutm-mali/index_en.htm.
7. See the names of the French soldiers who have died in Mali,
at the French Army website: http://www.defense.gouv.fr/terre/base/
in-memoriam/mali. For more about French special forces in the Sahel,
see Jean-Marc Tanguy’s blog post at Le Mamouth, “COS:+1000 …
(Actualisé Avec Liens)” 4 March 2013, http://lemamouth.blogspot.
fr/2013/03/cos-1000.html.
8. François Hollande, at a press conference in Dubai, translated by Philippe Seigneur, 15 January 2013. See transcript
online in French, “Conférence de presse du Président de la République à Dubai,” website of the Présidence de la République
Française, http://www.elysee.fr/conferences-de-presse/article/
conference-de-presse-du-president-de-la-republique-a-dubai/.

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9. Andrew Hanson, “The French Military in Africa,” at Council
on Foreign Relations website, 8 February 2008, http://www.cfr.org/
france/french-military-africa/p12578#p3.
10. Canada provided one Boeing C-17 Globemaster III military
transport aircraft, Great Britain provided one C-17, the United
States provided three C-17s, Belgium provided two Lockheed
C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft, Denmark provided one
C-130, and Germany provided two Transall C-160 military transport aircraft.
11. The name “Caesar” refers to camion equipé d’un système
d’artillerie, maximum range 40 km.
12. See http://www.defense.gouv.fr/terre/base/in-memoriam/
mali.
13. Ibid.
14. See Jean-Dominique Merchet, “Nord-Mali: L’opération
Panthère se Solde par une Victoire dans l’Ametettaï (actualisé),” blog
post at Secret défense website, 5 March 2013, http://www.marianne.
net/blogsecretdefense/Nord-Mali-l-operation-Panthere-se-soldepar-une-victoire-dans-l-Ametettai_a972.html.
15. See http://www.defense.gouv.fr/terre/base/in-memoriam/
mali.
16. Dan Murphy, “The French are Winning Handily in Mali,”
blog post at The Christian Science Monitor, 31 January 2013,
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2013/0131/
The-French-are-winning-handily-in-Mali.
17. See the defense white paper, English version, “French
White Paper on Defence and National Security—2013,” [Republic
of France] Ministry of Defence, 2013, http://www.defense.gouv.fr/
english/portail-defense.

November-December 2014  MILITARY REVIEW