TIMBUKTU (Mali), Feb 2: French President Francois Hollande bathed in the cheers and accolades of the thousands of people of this embattled city on Saturday, making a triumphant stop six days after French forces parachuted into Timbuktu to liberate the fabled city from the Islamists occupying it.    

His arrival comes three weeks after France unilaterally launched a military intervention in order to stem the advance of the Al Qaeda-linked fighters, and since then French troops have succeeded in ousting the rebels from the three main northern cities they occupied, including Timbuktu.

“Alongside the Malians and the Africans, we have liberated this town. Today Timbuktu. Tomorrow Kidal. And others are still to come,” Mr Hollande told the French troops who stood at attention on the tarmac of the city’s airport. They secured the airfield on Monday, after special forces parachuted onto the dunes just north of the city. “You have accomplished an exceptional mission.”

Thousands of people stood elbow-to-elbow behind a perimeter line in downtown Timbuktu, hoisting the homemade French flags they had prepared for Mr Hollande’s arrival.

Women wore vibrantly-coloured African prints, and bared their midriffs, their arms and their backs, after nearly a year of being forced to wear a colourless, all-enveloping veil. They danced as men played the drums – a loud, raucous celebration after months of privation.

The French president later visited Bamako, the capital of Mali, where he attended a ceremony addressed by Malian President Dioncounda Traore.

As Mr Hollande’s convoy rolled out of town on the carpet of sand that leads to the airport, the French president passed the billboards erected by the Islamic rebels, saying: “The city of Timbuktu was founded on Islam, and will be judged on Islamic law.”—AP