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Chad’s to pull 2,000 soldiers from Mali

BAMAKO, Mali — The war against armed Islamist extremists in Mali will lose about 2,000 Chadian soldiers, the president of Chad said, leaving Malian cities more vulnerable to a resurgence of jihadist attacks.

The news that Chad will pull its troops from Mali could force France to push back its own timeframe for withdrawing its troops from its former West African colony and creates greater urgency for a UN military mission to Mali. The United Nations is set to consider sending a mission, but diplomats have yet to determine its composition and mission.

Since the French-led mission began in mid-January, soldiers from Chad have been involved in some of the fiercest fighting and are credited with some of the biggest successes to date. Among them was killing Abou Zeid, a notorious Al Qaeda commander who had kidnapped and terrorized Westerners in the desert for years.

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Chad also has suffered heavy troop casualties. Chadian President Idriss Deby announced his forces would not be sticking around for a protracted guerrilla war with the radical Islamist insurgents.

‘‘Chad’s army has no ability to face the kind of guerrilla fighting that is emerging in northern Mali. Our soldiers are going to return to Chad. They have accomplished their mission,’’ Deby said in an interview with French journalists posted online Monday.

France took the lead back in January in launching the war to dislodge Islamstc militants who had seized control of northern Mali in 2012 amid the chaos after a coup in Mali’s capital.

The French, like the Chadians, hope to downscale their presence and have said they hope to have 1,000 troops left in Mali by the end of the year, down from a high of 4,000.

The early departure of Chadian forces raises questions about how feasible the planned French pullout will be if the French want to maintain the inroads made against armed Islamist extremists in northern Mali.

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‘‘Ultimately the French may have to revise their own timetable for withdrawal,’’ said J. Peter Pham, of the Africa program at the Washington-based Atlantic Council.

For its part, the Malian military is poorly equipped to take the lead in the war. A European Union-led mission is training Malian troops, though the Malian military still remains badly disorganized after last year’s coup, led by a junior officer.