House to investigate Mali crisis in the wake of French intervention

The House Foreign Affairs panel on Thursday will hold the first public hearing on the crisis in Mali since French troops intervened in the West African nation last month.

The hearing comes as France this week began discussions at the United Nations on the creation of a U.N. peacekeeping force. French forces intervened at the central government's urging on Jan. 11 to combat Islamist militants who have taken over the northern part of the vast desert country.

Separately, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has said that Tuesday's closed portion of her panel's confirmation hearing for CIA director nominee John Brennan will focus on Mali and the region.

“I am specifically going to just warn you that I would like to talk or have you respond in detail to what I perceive as a difficult, evolving situation in North Africa, now with Tunisia, with Libya, with all these countries, and certainly with Mali, and ... how you plan to direct the agency to deal with this evolving momentum that's taking place in northern Africa,” Feinstein told Brennan on the tail end of Thursday's confirmation hearing.

The crisis spilled over to neighboring Algeria late last month when Islamists took dozens of people hostage at a natural gas facility and demanded that French forces withdraw. Forty-eight foreign workers, including three Americans, were killed when Algerian forces intervened.

Witnesses at next week's hearing include Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs Amanda Dory. The Obama administration had called for the creation of an African-led force to counter the militant rebels but militants threw that timeline into disarray when they struck the southern part of the country.

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