PARIS (AP) — French special forces backed by helicopters led a pre-dawn operation in northern Mail Thursday and freed five humanitarian aid workers who had been held captive by a “terrorist group” — killing about 10 of the alleged militants, officials said.

Working off intelligence tips, the French forces intercepted two pickup trucks carrying the hostage-takers and their captives north of the historic city of Timbuktu, one of three major towns in a vast region on the Sahara’s southern rim where the five went missing Feb. 8, said Col. Gilles Jaron, a French military spokesman.