© Reuters/Luc GnagoFrench President Emmanuel Macron during visit to Ivory Coast
France's military has said it carried out a drone strike for the first time, during operations in Mali in which 40 alleged terrorists were killed.
On Saturday, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, announced that French forces had "neutralised" 33 jihadists in the central Malian region of Mopti, in an operation that had started the previous night.
In a statement on Monday, the French military command said the drone strike took place during a follow-up operation on Saturday in which a further seven jihadist fighters were killed.As French commandos were searching the
combat zone in Ouagadou forest, 90 miles from the town of Mopti, "they were attacked by a group of terrorists on motorbikes", the statement said.
A Reaper drone and a French Mirage 2000 patrol opened fire to support the ground troops."This is the first operational strike by an armed drone," the statement said, confirming an earlier report published in the specialist blog Le Mamouth.
Comment: The Guardian, 21/19/2019 French forces in Mali focus on jihadist threat