the French army accuses the mercenaries of Wagner of manipulation, video in support


The French army filmed what it claims were Russian mercenaries burying bodies near the Gossi base in northern Mali.

The French army has filmed what it claims are Russian mercenaries burying bodies near the Gossi base in northern Mali, in a bid it says to accuse the French of leaving a mass grave behind them. In this video taken by drone to which AFP had access Thursday evening, and which the French general staff describes as an “informational attack”, we can see soldiers busying themselves around corpses which they cover with sand . In another sequence, we see two of these soldiers filming the half-buried bodies.

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The staff assures that they are white soldiers whom it has identified on videos and photos taken at other places. Some photos also show vehicles leaving a base whose structure and environment correspond to the grip of Gossi, where an AFP team has already visited twice. This sequence comes a few days after the departure of French soldiers from the Gossi base, as part of the French disengagement from Mali, announced in February. The keys to this hold, which housed 300 French soldiers, were handed over to the Malian armed forces (FAMa) on Tuesday.

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This is the first time that the French army has broadcast military drone images in such a short time to counter an informational attack, while the struggle for influence is now raging on social networks.

The Malian authorities had not reacted officially in the middle of the afternoon on Friday.

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A rude manipulation

At the start of this informational response, images broadcast Thursday on the Twitter account of a man named Dia Diarra, who proclaims himself “former soldier” and “Malian patriot”. This account was created in January 2022, AFP found.

After warning Wednesday of the imminent publication of a video showing abuses committed by the French, he published the next day a photo of blurred corpses buried in the sand, with the comment: “This is what the French left behind them when they left the base at #Gossi (…) we can’t keep silent about that!”. The same account later posts a short video of these half-buried bodies.

“We are witnessing a structured informational maneuver”, based on the “upscaling of a first tweet”, commented Friday the spokesperson for the general staff, Colonel Pascal Ianni.

Dia Diarra’s account “is most likely a fake account created by Wagner”, the Russian private military company, estimates the French staff. “This maneuver to discredit the (French anti-jihadist force in the Sahel) Barkhane seems coordinated. It is representative of the multiple information attacks to which the French soldiers have been subjected for many months.

According to the French army, “the comparison of the photos published on Twitter and the images collected by the specialized sensor makes it possible to make a direct link between what Wagner’s mercenaries are doing and what is falsely attributed to the French soldiers”.

According to her, these “exactions testify to the modes of action implemented by Wagner’s mercenaries, which have been observed in the Central African Republic since (his) deployment and which have been denounced by many international organizations and NGOs”.

Paris decided in February its military withdrawal from Mali, in a degraded security context and against a backdrop of tensions between France and the military junta in power, accused by Westerners of using the services of the Wagner group. Bamako evokes for its part simple Russian advisers.

On Tuesday, the French general staff had warned to expect informational attacks on the occasion of the handover of the Gossi base.

His spokesman, Colonel Pascal Ianni, had specified that a “documented” inventory of the base had been drawn up to protect France from possible accusations. An allusion to the anti-French sentiment that has gained ground in the region and has caused France to be the subject of smear campaigns on social networks.

“Several months ago, the French forces were accused of participating in trafficking (…), of arming terrorists and even of committing abuses”, recalled Colonel Ianni at the time.

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© Agence France-Presse



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