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| - Chad remains committed to the G5 Sahel anti-jihadist force, the French government said on Friday, a week after President Idriss Deby announced his troops would no longer participate in operations beyond Chad's borders. Deby's announcement, following a Boko Haram militant attack that killed 98 Chadian troops, raised questions about the impact on regional cooperation against jihadists in the Sahel. Chad's military is a key part of the 5,000-man G5 force alongside Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Mauritania in cooperating with French troops to combat a growing Islamist insurgency. "The Chadian army is engaged on numerous fronts," French minister for the army Florence Parly told a hearing before the French Senate committee on defense. She said Chad will send a battalion to north Niger as part of G5 operations as originally planned. It is the first time the French government has commented since Chad's announcement last week. Deby surprised G5 partners and France anti-jihadist forces in Operation Barkhane in the Sahel when he said no Chadian soldier would participate in operations outside the nation's border. His comments also fueled speculation about exactly how he planned to realign cooperation for Chad's military, considered one of the most professional in the region. Chad's military participates in the Multinational Joint Force (FMM) which since 2015 has been fighting Boko Haram, now very established in the Lake Chad basin, on the border with Niger and Cameroon. It also supplies troops to the United Nations mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, where militants have stepped up their campaign in the centre of the country. The G5 Sahel initiative began in 2017 in a scheme aimed at easing the Sahel's dependence on French troops. But it has run into problems of funding, training and equipment. The French army minister is expected to meet next week with her Chadian counterpart, her cabinet said on Friday, adding that "things have always been clear enough" between Paris and N'Djamena since the president's remarks. dla/pma/lc
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