Surge in Militant Attacks in Mali Tests French, UN Forces
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The lights of the French military base in the northern Malian city of Gao fade into the distance as a convoy of vehicles winds its way up the nearby Batal plateau to stop militants from using the area to fire rockets at the town.
The mission of the French troops on the plateau was to install a solar-powered system to detect the origin of rockets that strike Gao, as on April 5 when a young woman was killed in the courtyard of her home. While French and United Nations forces have weakened the insurgents, they’ve been unable to extinguish their threat in Africa’s third-biggest gold producer.