France to deploy troops across Africa's Sahel region

France said Sunday that its military offensive aimed at expelling armed groups from northern Mali would be replaced by an operation spanning the wider Sahel region.

The so-called Serval offensive in Mali began in January last year when French troops helped Malian soldiers stop Al-Qaeda-linked militants and Tuareg rebels from moving south and advancing on the capital Bamako.

France had initially planned to put an end to Serval and redeploy troops to the Sahel region in May, but a fresh bout of clashes between rebels and the army in the flashpoint northern town of Kidal forced Paris to delay the pull-out.

A Malian army source said Sunday that 37 people were killed in desert clashes that began Friday near Kidal. The army blamed the violence on infighting between separatists.

That same day, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a television interview that the "president wanted a reorganization of our troops in the [Sahel] zone."

But Le Drian said concern had now shifted away from just Mali to the vast Sahel region, "to make sure there is no upsurge [in violence] as there are still major risks that jihadists will develop in the zone that goes from the Horn of Africa to Guinea-Bissau."

The new military operation, codenamed Barkhan, will kick off in the coming days and is being implemented in partnership with five countries — Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad — in the Sahel-Sahara region, Le Drian said. He added that some 3,000 French soldiers would be part of the operation, 1,000 of whom would stay in northern Mali and the rest would be deployed in the four other countries. 

Drones, helicopters, fighter jets, armored vehicles and transport planes would also be used as part of Operation Barkhan — the name of a crescent-shaped sand dune in the desert — which will have its headquarters in the Chadian capital N'Djamena.

"The aim is to prevent what I call the highway of all forms of traffics to become a place of permanent passage, where jihadist groups between Libya and the Atlantic Ocean can rebuild themselves, which would lead to serious consequences for our security," Le Drain said.

In May, French President Francois Hollande assembled the leaders of Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Benin to agree on a strategy that would help find dozens of kidnapped Nigerian girls. He gathered them to meet with French, U.S. and British officials in Paris in hopes of coordinating actions, policing borders and sharing intelligence to trace the weapons and cash that are the lifeblood of Boko Haram, the group responsible for the girls' abductions.

Meanwhile, Dutch troops have joined a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali to meet a growing security threat to the Netherlands and Europe as a whole, with the Dutch foreign minister saying that "softer" approaches can no longer contain the danger posed by armed fighters in the Sahel.

Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said there was a growing sense of urgency that radical groups operating from the Atlantic through to the Persian Gulf were not just posing a threat to weak governments in the region but also targeting Europe.

About 8,000 of the 12,000 strong U.N. force has been deployed and so far the main contributors are African nations. U.N. peacekeepers operate separately from French troops focusing on security missions in Mali.

Al Jazeera and wire services