LONDON — The widespread satisfaction expressed in France at the government’s decision to intervene militarily against Islamic militants in Mali was tempered on Saturday by news of a failed overnight French hostage rescue mission on the other side of Africa.
After reports emerged from Somalia of a helicopter-borne commando raid in the south of the country, Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defense minister announced that a hostage was believed to have been killed by his captors in an operation in which a French soldier died and another was missing.
The hostage, identified as Denis Allex, was a French secret service agent who had been held by Somalia’s Islamist Al Shabab militia since 2009. His captors, who may have seized the missing French soldier during the raid, claimed Mr. Allex was still alive and they planned to put him on trial.
Mr. Le Drian said there was no connection between the military operations in Mali and Somalia. The hostage rescue mission would have happened earlier, he told a news conference, if the conditions had been right.
However, news of the Somali raid prompted speculation that the action might have been prompted by France’s concern that its Mali intervention would spur retaliation against its citizens held captive in Africa.
These include eight hostages seized in Mali and neighboring states by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, one of the groups involved in last year’s Islamist takeover of northern Mali.
The decision of President François Hollande to send French forces into action in Mali to counter an offensive by Islamist militias that control the north of the country has been greeted with broad cross-party support at home.
Libération newspaper said it could represent a positive turning point in the presidency of Mr. Hollande, “who did not hesitate in the face of the very real risk of seeing the establishment of a terrorist state in the heart of the dark continent.”
Families of the hostages, however, expressed fears for the fate of their loved ones, with some demanding why military action to free them had not been taken earlier.
Jean-Pierre Verdon, the father of one captive, Philippe Verdon, told France’s RTL broadcaster: “Making war on terrorists is a matter for the state, but our obsession is the hostages.”
A leader of the regional Al Qaeda group last month accused France of blocking negotiations on a deal that would have led to freeing the captives.
Mathieu Guidère, a French academic expert on the region, speculated at the time that the government wanted to send a message to the militants that the capture of French citizens would not affect its foreign policy.
The government was trapped in an “infernal logic,”, according to Mr. Guidère, a professor at the University of Toulouse.
“The more the government declares it will intervene in Mali to support African forces, the more French citizens will be kidnapped,” he told Le Figaro in December. “If you want to fight terrorism, you don’t go about announcing it in advance.”
Before news came through of the abortive overnight raid in Somalia, the intervention in Mali had attracted support across the political spectrum in France.
Jean-François Copé, head of the center-right opposition U.M.P., said: “It was high time to act to prevent the establishment of a narco-terrorist state.”
François Fillon, a former U.M.P. prime minister said: “The fight against terrorism demands national unity beyond partisan differences.”
With Mr. Hollande now facing a second crisis in Africa, it is a political honeymoon that may not last.
IHT Rendezvous: Hostages Caught Up in France's African Intervention
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IHT Rendezvous: Hostages Caught Up in France's African Intervention
