Dance his latest weekly report, the General Staff of the Armed Forces gave details of an operation carried out on March 12 in the area known as "the three borders", between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. While a Nigerien guard post was attacked by a large terrorist group in the Ayourou sector, the French forces of Operation Barkhane deployed significant air assets in the area.
In support of the Nigerian armed forces, the French Air Force sent an armed MQ-9 Reaper drone and a Mirage 2000D patrol. Two strikes were said to have been carried out, making it possible to neutralize some 2000 terrorists and numerous motorcycles used by them to carry out their raid. The General Staff report does not specify whether the strikes were carried out only by the Mirage 2000D or also through the Reaper deployed in the area. In fact, the interaction between piloted fighters and armed drones seems today sufficiently advanced in the Air Force that such details no longer really matter. Now, the Mirage 9D and MQ-XNUMX Reaper seem capable of acting in perfect coordination as a single well-tested weapon system.
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