commander, general nicholson, has been asking for about that number. what he wants to do with this, twofold. one, beef up the counterterrorism mitchell. more fighters on the ground to go after the isis network and other al qaeda affiliated groups actually using afghanistan, continue to use afghanistan, as a safer haven and use some for the advise and train beefing up afghan security forces fighting bravely in the field but in sore need of additional help. sort of a third component, too. enabling functions. air support, logistics, information and surveillance reconnaissance thas reconnaissance, that kind of thing. i think you ll see the three prongs if you use these troops and as a component of force protection. one of the reasons we don t have more troops is because we don t have mo
little bit more about the identities of the victims. you now have confirmation that one american citizen was among those killed. a short while ago, a couple hours ago, to be precise, we got confirmation from officials here in belgium that a civil employee, a civil worker, if you will, of a regional parliament tier in belgium was also among those killed. he was also in mali for a training program to help train mali s parliament, and as a result of his trip there, he was at that hotel when the attack happened. it s giving you a sense of how diverse the victims were. we have now heard a claim of responsibility. important to emphasize, though, chris, as you know, that we cannot independently verify this claim of responsibility, but there is a claim of responsibility from one of the al qaeda affiliated groups that has been operating in the northern part of the country. they say they were behind the attack today. you know, we were talking about this earlier, there was some speculation that t
ancient sites shocked the world and led a government who had a strong we rationship. it happened to be a french kolmy and immediately launched air strikes to try to regain control of the northern part of the country and bring it under control of the northern part of the country. they managed to launch control in the northern part of the country. but it is by no means stable. those groups have been carrying out attacks mostly in the northern parts and it s growing concern thai going to start pledging allegiance to isis or see the presence of another group that operates in west africa start to establish a foothold in the northern part of the country. the attacks have been increasing. there was an attack in march that killed five people when one of the groups in the north this
absolutely. there s actually a very robust french presence in mali. a lot of it political and military. mali used to be a french colony, but more recently, the french military was very active in leading the airstrikes that forced out militant groups in the northern part of the country. you may recall that back in 2012, mali carried out the mali military carried out a coup and that led to the split of the country. al qaeda affiliated groups took control of the northern part of the country, and that led the french military and the french president francois hollande to lead an air campaign to depose those al qaeda militant groups that have taken place there. the air campaign was also supported by about 1,000 french troops that were on the ground, and there has always been very close ties between mali, and france, both on a diplomatic, cultural, and business level. so, it would not be a surprise to find out that there is a robust presence of french nationals at that hotel, in addition to
with impacts for the past several years. they have been struggling wi. dealing with groups in the north part of the country. now, the storm sort of came together in 2012 because it was around that time that the military in mali carried out a cue against the civilian president against the country at that time and shortly after doing so, the country split. you have some rebel groups in the north but you also had al qaeda affiliated groups and islam militant groups suddenly arise in prominence starting to carry out attacks and manage to take the entire northern part of the country under their control. they shock the world just as we re seeing with isis in syria. this morning some of the most