A large armoured convoy of French troops left the Malian capital, Bamako, overnight heading for the north in what may signal an intensification of a ground war against Islamist rebels. Their big guns were ready and their headlights blaring. At some points along the road people gathered to wave at the French soldiers. In another development, an official of the ethnic National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) has told the BBC they will fight the Islamist groups. The MNLA are not Islamists. They were in a loose alliance with the Islamist Ansar Dine and other groups last year when they defeated the Malian army in the north. But the Tuareg agenda is essentially for self-determination...
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