Breaking News - Malians praise French: 'If they leave, I will leave'

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Eric Gaillard / ReutersA woman waves to French soldiers Thursday as they head toward the recently liberated town of Diabaly. Some Malians are so grateful for the job the French have done routing Islamist insurgents, they say they  hope the troops never leave.By Richard Valdmanis, ReutersDIABALY, Mali -- Residents of Diabaly feared for their lives when French airstrikes pounded their small town in central Mali, shaking their homes and turning the pickup trucks of Islamist fighters into burning, twisted metal.

Despite that, they are grateful to France.

Children in bare feet and tattered T-shirts now play among the trucks' charred wreckage -- a visible reminder that the town was the focus of the French-led war against al-Qaida-linked rebels bent on carving an Islamist state out of the Sahara.

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