French forces tried to use a journalist’s visit to northern Mali to track a jihadist leader but failed to prevent the reporter from being kidnapped by the militants, French media reported Wednesday. The report comes amid an investigation into what happened to journalist Olivier Dubois, 48, who was abducted in the northern Malian town of Gao in April 2021. Based on French and Malian judicial documents from the probe, the report said a fixer working with Dubois had informed France’s anti-jihadist Barkhane force of his plans to interview a jihadist leader. Barkhane planned to track the leader back to his base but abandoned the operation last minute, it said. But they did not deploy the necessary means to prevent the journalist from being kidnapped, it said.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 17, 2023 15:23 UTC