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Mali. By Vincent LEFAI (AFP)
French and Malian troops have killed or captured more than 30 extremists and dismantled a jihadist training camp during a major anti-terror operation near Mali's border with Burkina Faso, announced Friday. French army to AFP.
"More than 30 members of armed terrorist groups have been neutralized," said the army, which means that they were killed or captured.
A French military doctor was also killed during the operation, announced the US military.
The operation was launched in late March in Gourma, a crossroads of the central belt of Mali bordering the border with Burkina Faso.
The doctor was killed when his vehicle hit a mine, bringing to 24 the number of French defense personnel killed in counter-terrorism operations in the region since 2013.
Some 4,500 French troops are deployed in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad to help local forces try to eliminate jihadist groups, six years after France helped to drive out the fundamentalists. Al-Qaeda from northern Mali.
The Gourma region is a haven for armed groups hiding in the forests along the southern border with Burkina Faso, including a group suspected of carrying out several cross-border attacks.
About 700 French soldiers and 150 Malian soldiers were deployed as part of an air and ground operation aimed at destroying their bases.
On the other side of the border, Burkina Faso has deployed troops "to prevent any attempt to escape from the enemy to the south of the zone," said the spokesman of the USSR. French army Patrik Steiger.
The operation first targeted the Foulsare Forest in southwestern Gao Province, where the troops found a "logistic base" containing rocket launchers and other weapons, the army said.
No jihadists were killed during this offensive, the defense forces said.
The second phase of the operation, which led to losses on the side of the jihadists, targeted several sites, including a training camp in the Serma Forest.
A van, a dozen motorcycles, weapons and ammunition, including large amounts of equipment used to make roadside bombs, were seized, the army said.
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