French troops deploy to last of Mali rebel strongholds

French troops have been deployed at the airport of the northern Malian town of Kidal, the last rebel stronghold in the north, a French officer and a local official told Reuters on Wednesday.
   
"I can confirm it. They arrived late last night and they deployed in four planes and some helicopters," said Haminy Belco Maiga, president of the regional assembly of Kidal.
   
A French officer said operations were "ongoing" in Kidal, the last of northern Mali's major towns to be retaken by French forces after they reached Gao and Timbuktu earlier this week.

Meanwhile it was reported that a vast majority of Timbuktu's ancient manuscripts in state and private collections appear to be unharmed after the city's 10-month occupation by Islamist rebel fighters, who did burn some of the scripts, experts said on Wednesday.
   
"I can say that the vast majority of the collections appear from our reports not to have been destroyed, damaged or harmed in any way," Cape Town University's Professor Shamil Jeppie, an expert on the Saharan city's manuscripts, told Reuters.
   
A Malian source also directly involved with the conservation of the Timbuktu manuscripts told Reuters 95 percent of the total documents, estimated to number just over 300,000 in the city and region, were "safe and sound".


REUTERS