The latest report comes from All Africa.
Mali Declares Emergency As France Launches Air Strike to Push Back Rebels
Mali's interim President Dioncounda Traore Friday declared a state of emergency as government forces battled to hold back al Qaeda-linked Islamist fighters threatening to push south from their northern strongholds.
Also yesterday, France carried out air strikes against the Islamist rebels as it began a military intervention intended to halt a drive southward by the militants who control the country's desert north.
"President Traore has just decreed a state of emergency. The information will be transmitted on national television this evening," an official at the presidency told Reuters, asking not to be named.
The French President Francois Hollande said earlier on Friday that Paris would respond favourably to Mali's request for help, within the limits of United Nations Security Council resolutions, and was ready to move to stop a push by the rebels into new territory.
Western governments, particularly former colonial power France, voiced alarm after the al Qaeda-linked rebel alliance captured the central Malian town of Konna on Thursday, a gateway towards the capital Bamako 600 km (375 miles) further south.
President Hollande said France would not stand by to watch the rebels push southward. Paris, the leading advocate for foreign intervention in Mali, has repeatedly warned that Islamists' seizure of the country's north in April gave them a base to attack the West.
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