Mali: Troops Welcomed In Timbuktu
Updated: 3:09pm UK, Thursday 31 January 2013
By Alex Crawford, Special Correspondent
French foreign legion paratroopers are scouring Timbuktu, Mali, for al Qaeda cells still hiding in the town.
The residents we spoke to are convinced that many of the armed militants did not make it out of the ancient town before the French bombardment.
"They're still here. I know they are. They're hiding in homes in the town," Abdau Warabacha told us.
As we sat on the sand floor of his mud hut, Mr Warabacha explained how French jets had bombed Timbuktu for two days.
Then on Monday, teams of French legionnaires parachuted into the airport, which is several kilometres from the town centre.
The Sky News team arrived at the airport with French ground troops shortly afterwards.
Inside the Blindé (armoured personnel carrier) the soldiers were heady with excitement.
"This is what we have been working towards," Corporal Max told us. (The French military only give first names for security reasons).
We left them behind at the airport, setting up a base and securing their position there, and were the first journalists to enter Timbuktu town, ahead of both the Malian and French armies.
People were already gathered at a stone archway marking the entrance to the town, frantically waving the French Tricolore alongside the Malian flag.
"Viva la France!" they shouted, as we swept into town in two cars draped with the red, white and blue French flag colours to ensure against any random air strikes.
At this stage I had a sneaking feeling the Timbuktu residents thought the camera crew of Garwen McLuckie, Jim Foster, Nick Ludlam and myself were all French. At that moment, we weren't going to dispose them of that notion.
Crowds were careering across town in pick-up trucks, cheering and applauding the French.
"Merci, merci, merci France," they repeatedly shouted.
Hordes of people guided us to some of the tombs which had been destroyed by the militants. Eight hundred-year-old monuments had been reduced to rubble. Historic buildings, preserved for centuries, were now gone forever.
The crowd around us was quiet inside the area known as the tomb of the three saints, as they gazed at the pile of stones that was once their heritage.
At the Ahmed Baba Institute we saw mounds of ash with pieces of manuscripts sticking through the cinders where the jihadis had destroyed an estimated 3,000 ancient documents dating back to the 12th century.
But other manuscripts had been smuggled out by the people, who knew that if they had been discovered by the jihadis, they could have been executed or flogged.
Professor of Archaeological History, Abdullah Cisse, managed to sneak out hundreds of books from the library which militants were threatening to destroy. He had kept them hidden, locked up in a back room of his house.
On top of his bedroom cupboard he was keeping boxes of ancient manuscripts which he had been able to surreptitiously take out of the institute to safety.
"If they'd found these, they would have burned them," he told us. "They were destroying everything."
People were coming up to us, telling us unprompted tales of how the jihadis had terrorised them during the 10 months they had ruled Timbuktu.
They spoke of public executions, of people being buried up to their necks and stoned, of others, including women, being flogged for breaking Islamic "law".
Many women told us they were jailed, beaten and even raped if they were deemed to have acted inappropriately by the Islamic police. Offences included not covering their faces or talking to men outside of their family.
Several hours after we had been in Timbuktu, a platoon of French legionnaires arrived on foot. They seemed a little tense, guns drawn, not quite sure of the reception they would get.
They were soon surrounded by flag-waving and cheering crowds. Someone was beating a drum in welcome.
"Bienvenue Timbuktu!" they shouted.
Caches of weapons and ammunition had been left behind in the homes and the streets of shops run by the militants.
Less than 24 hours later, the ecstasy of the French army's arrival had given way to rage and anger. We heard the banging and shouting as we woke in the early morning.
A few streets away in the old city, hundreds of people, many of them women and children, were breaking into the shops and homes which they said were once owned by the Arab 'militants'. They were tearing the places apart, ripping off even the door frames and electrical sockets in their frenzy.
A few soldiers tried rather half-heartedly to restore order but gave up.
"This is our stuff," one man screamed at a soldier. "This belongs to us."
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