French bomb rebel-held African towns

Thursday, French fighter jets led an assault over Ouadda in the Central African Republic which was known by French officials to be captured by rebels led by Diego Albator Yao, in an effort to help Central African peace keepers. French officials have not commented on the assaults on the town of Ndeleac, but rebel leader Yao states that the French came into with jets and helicopters, but still failed to extract the rebel forces. The rebels forces have claimed that their motive is to have the Central African Republic administration answer to charges of corruption, ethnic favor bias, and misuse of the nation's funds.



The original leader, Ange-Felix Patasse, was overthrown by a rebel led alliance, which led to the rebel leader Francois Yangouvonda taking over as the current President of the Central African Republic. It seems this region has had long standing ethnic wars and rebellions. France's involvement in this region is to help wipe out the rebels, but I find it ironic that they're helping the President of the Central African Republic, who himself was a rebel leader. The UN's involvement is certainly needed here to keep the fighting from spreading to other parts of Africa, or else we might face a war that cost many innocent lives.

Air strikes on a Town? Can't say I'm really an advocate of those... I'm more a proponent of using helicopters as troop support

I think it will strenghen the rebels with good propaganda material

Moreover, the article say "French firepower has put rebels on the run in recent days." Which is good from a militarily point of view. At the same time, some suspect Soudan support of rebels. This is an important problem in African Peacekeeping.

Say, for instance, we give a peacekeeping force the mandate to maintain peace in Darfur, Soudan. A problem you will have in many areas, is that Peacekeeping forces are always seen as taking a side and that rebel renforcements come from other countries.

Pretty hard to say you have established peace in a country if troops keep coming from the other side of the frontier... And they don't have mandates to pursue them wich encourages guerilla like tactics...

The use of Air Power against the Rebels shows that French leaders are smarter then some people think. I dont have a problem with the bombing of a town in fact I would encourage the wide spread use of Air Power against the Rebels and in Sudan.