Islamists flee French air strikes in Mali 
 
 BAMAKO — French air strikes forced Islamist guerrillas to flee towns in northern Mali and Paris secured new international support for military action as the militants struck back, seizing a small western town. 
 
 The Islamists said they had made a "tactical retreat" from Timbuktu and other key towns where they have imposed a brutal version of Islamic law for nearly 10 months. 
 
 But they struck back in western Mali where they took the small town of Diabaly from the country's weakened army, highlighting the daunting campaign ahead to restore order in the West African nation. 
 
 French jets on Monday hit Douentza, 800 kilometres (500 miles) from Bamako, which the Islamists have held since September. But residents said the fighters had left before the warplanes arrived. 
 
 In Timbuktu, where inhabitants have been executed or had limbs cut off in some of the worst abuses, the Islamists reportedly fled in anticipation of an attack. 
 
 "The mujahideen have left. They are really scared," said one resident in the historic city, where the militants have destroyed centuries-old Muslim monuments. 
 
 In Gao, another northern city held by the Islamists, the jihadists were nowhere to be seen after bombing by Rafale warplanes on Sunday, residents there said. 
 
 At least 60 insurgents were killed in Sunday's assault, according to residents and a security source. 
 
 Mali's Foreign Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly said in Paris that he believed more than 100 Islamists had been killed in the four days since France launched operations to stem a guerrilla advance towards Bamako. 
 
 A spokesman for the Ansar Dine (Defenders of the Faith) group, Senda Ould Boumama, said the withdrawal was a "tactical retreat" to reduce civilian casualties, in comments published on Mauritanian news website Alakhbar. 
 
 A leader of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), vowed revenge. "France has attacked Islam. We will strike at the heart of France," said Abou Dardar of the Al-Qaeda-linked group. 
 
 On top of the use of Rafale fighters and helicopter attacks, about 650 French troops are in Mali to halt the Islamist advance, according to the French defence ministry. 
 
 While jolted by France's arrival, the insurgents remained on the offensive in areas where French troops were not yet operating. The militants seized Diabaly, some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of Bamako. 
 
 "We knew there would be a counter-offensive towards the west," French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told BFM Television. 
 
 "They have taken Diabaly, which is a small town, after heavy fighting and resistance from the Malian army, which was insufficiently equipped at that exact point." 
 
 Le Drian acknowledged that French forces were facing a "difficult" situation in the west, where he said the rebels are well armed. 
 
 France's Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius hailed the "quasi-unanimous" international backing for the offensive, strongly supported by Mali. 
 
 "We cannot simply push them back, we have to chase them away," Coulibaly told French television after meeting Fabius. "We simply now cannot allow a timeout for these forces to reorganise." 
 
 A meeting of the 15-nation UN Security Council on Mali also expressed unanimous "understanding and support" for the military intervention, France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud told reporters. 
 
 France and other council countries want to speed up the deployment of a UN-mandated 3,300-strong West African intervention force in Mali. 
 
 Nigeria, which will lead the force, plans to have 600 troops on the ground "before next week," President Goodluck Jonathan said. Benin, Ghana, Niger, Senegal, Burkina Faso and Togo have also pledged troops. 
 
 Britain and Canada have offered military transporters to the French military and the United States said it will share intelligence and provide logistical support. 
 
 "I commend France for taking the steps that it has," US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said. 
 
 Algeria said it had closed its 2,000 km (1,250 mile) desert border with northern Mali to stop Islamists crossing into the country. 
 
 The Islamists seized upon the chaos of a military coup in Bamako in March to seize northern Mali, sparking widespread international fears that they could set up a terrorist safe haven. 
 
 The UN Security Council had given approval for a military offensive that UN officials had said could not be launched until September. 
 
 But the Islamist offensive and France's military intervention has led to predictions by diplomats that the plans will be reviewed. 
 
 Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| A Malian intelligence agent posted near the central Malian town of Diabaly confirmed that French pilots launched a raid on Monday morning close to the town. 
 
 This picture released by the French Army Communications Audiovisual office (ECPAD) shows French Mirage 2000 D aircraft flying to N'Djamena overnight January 11 to 12, after taking off from the French... (Associated Press) 
 
 A French soldiers patrols under the Eiffel tower, Sunday, Jan. 13, 2013. France has ordered tightened security in public buildings and transport following action against radical Islamists both in Mali... (Associated Press) 
 
 The bombing run marks an expansion of the battle to retake Mali's north. Until Sunday night, the raids had all occurred in distant northern areas. The bombardments near Diabaly follows airstrikes late Sunday 40 kilometers (25 miles) east of the locality, in the rice growing region of Anatola, once the site of a major USAID-funded project. 
 
 The agent, who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said that shots rang out near a military base in Diabaly. Soon after, he said French jets flew over the area, dropping bombs. ||||| Media caption The BBC's Mark Doyle reports from the Mali capital Bamako, where he is one of the few correspondents on the ground 
 
 Islamist fighters in Mali have seized a town in government-controlled territory, though France said the Islamists were "in retreat" elsewhere. 
 
 French officials said Diabaly, 400km (250 miles) from the capital, Bamako, was taken in a counter-attack. 
 
 France began a military intervention on Friday in an effort to halt Islamists who took control of northern Mali last year and were advancing towards Bamako. 
 
 The UN Security Council has convened to discuss Mali at France's request. 
 
 Aid workers said many people had been fleeing areas targeted by French air strikes over the past four days. 
 
 It is noticeable that already there are questions being asked about the purposes of Operation Serval Hugh Schofield, BBC News, Paris Mali a risk for 'new' Hollande 
 
 The Islamists began a counter-attack on Diabaly, home to a key Mali army base, on Sunday night, hours after French warplanes had targeted the town. 
 
 French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told BFM television: "They took Diabaly after fierce fighting and resistance from the Malian army that was not able to hold them off at that moment." 
 
 One resident told the BBC that the fighting had lasted for about 10 hours. 
 
 "About five [rebel] vehicles entered the town," he said. "Now they're stationed about 200m (650ft) from the military camp but they haven't taken the camp. They've killed a few soldiers." 
 
 A Malian military source told AFP news agency that rebels had come from the Mauritanian border area after being attacked by French planes. 
 
 Rebels 'in retreat' 
 
 The BBC's Mark Doyle reports from Bamako that although the Islamists are still hundreds of miles away, the war was felt in the Malian capital as the president visited wounded soldiers in hospital there. 
 
 France intensified its air strikes on rebel targets over the weekend, with its aircraft also bombing the town of Gao in eastern Mali. On Monday witnesses told AFP there had been air strikes on Douentza for a fourth consecutive day. 
 
 Analysis Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is the group that worries the French authorities most, but the view amongst most experts is that it does not currently have the capacity and networks on the ground to carry out a serious attack within France in the short term. The more immediate worry for France may be retaliation closer to Mali - there are 6,000 citizens in Mali itself but embassies, businesses and private citizens may all be at risk across North Africa. In the past experts argued that AQIM looked as much like a criminal network as a militant group. However, with the shift of its centre of gravity from Algeria to northern Mali, it acquired a sanctuary which began to change its character. Paris has clearly decided that the short-term risk of increased threat from intervening is outweighed by the importance of denying a militant group a long-term sanctuary. Islamist threat to French interests 
 
 "The developments are in line with our expectations," said Mr Le Drian. "The terrorist groups are in effect in retreat." 
 
 But he said French forces had encountered "heavily armed militants" in the west, where he described the situation as "difficult". 
 
 Rebels of the al-Qaeda-linked Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao), said that France would pay for its intervention. 
 
 Spokesman Abou Dardar told AFP: "France has attacked Islam. We will strike at the heart of France." 
 
 Separately, militants in Somalia have published a photograph purportedly showing one of two French soldiers killed during a failed hostage rescue attempt. Friday's raid on town of Bulo Marer, south of Mogadishu, came hours after the French intervention in Mali. 
 
 At least 11 Malian soldiers and a French helicopter pilot have died in Mali. More than 100 militants are reported to have been killed. 
 
 Medical charity Medicins Sans Frontieres said it had received numerous reports of people being killed or injured in Konna, and that in Douentza, bombardments and fighting were preventing the wounded from making it to hospital. 
 
 MSF said at least 200 people had fled to Mauritania by vehicle, with many more heading to the border on foot. 
 
 African troops pledged 
 
 French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France's involvement would last "a matter of weeks" and rejected any parallel with the protracted Western mission in Afghanistan. 
 
 He said preparations were "gathering pace" for the deployment of a West African force, including 600 troops from Nigeria, and 500 each from Niger, Burkina Faso, Togo and Senegal, and 300 from Benin. 
 
 "This international mobilisation is essential because France does not want to stand alone alongside Mali," he said. 
 
 Foreign forces in Mali Some 550 French troops in Bamako and Mopti 
 
 French Mirage and Rafale jets 
 
 Nigeria to send 600 troops; Senegal, Burkina Faso and Togo expected to send 500 each, and Benin 300 
 
 UK providing two C17 cargo planes for French effort 
 
 France says further logistics help from Denmark and US France's war in the desert 
 
 France has sent about 550 troops to the central town of Mopti and to Bamako, and a defence ministry official told Reuters troop numbers would increase to 2,500 in coming days. 
 
 The UK is offering logistical support, with two cargo planes made available for a week to support French operations. 
 
 Islamist groups and secular Tuareg rebels took advantage of chaos following a military coup to seize northern Mali in April 2012. 
 
 But the Islamists soon took control of the region's major towns, sidelining the Tuaregs. 
 
 One Islamist group, Ansar Dine, began pushing further south last week, seizing Konna. 
 
 The town has since been recaptured by Malian troops with French aerial support. 
 
 The battle for Mali 
 
 Image caption French forces have bombed rebel bases in Mali, where Islamist rebels have threatened to advance on the capital Bamako from their strongholds in the north. France said it had decided to act to stop the offensive, which could create "a terrorist state at the doorstep of France and Europe". 
 
 Image caption The landlocked area of West Africa was the core of ancient empires going back to the 4th Century. The French colonised Mali, then known as French Sudan, at the end of the 19th Century, while Islamic religious wars created theocratic states in the region. 
 
 Image caption Mali gained independence in 1960 but endured droughts, rebellions and 23 years of military dictatorship until democratic elections in 1992. In the early 1990s, the nomadic Tuareg of the north began an insurgency over land and cultural rights. 
 
 Image caption The insurgency gathered momentum in 2007, and was exacerbated by an influx of arms from the 2011 Libyan civil war. Tuareg nationalists, alongside Islamist groups with links to al-Qaeda, seized control of the north in 2012 after a military coup by soldiers frustrated by government efforts against the rebels. 
 
 Image caption The fighting in the north and the establishment of a harsh form of Islamic law has forced thousands to flee their homes - some estimates say more than half the northern population has fled south or across borders into neighbouring countries. ||||| First, they blunted an Islamist advance, saying the rest of Mali would have fallen into the hands of militants within days. Then on Sunday, French warplanes went on the offensive, going after training camps, depots and other militant positions far inside Islamist-held territory in an effort to uproot the militants, who have formed one of the largest havens for jihadists in the world. 
 
 Some Defense Department officials, notably officers at the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command, have pushed for a lethal campaign to kill senior operatives of two of the extremists groups holding northern Mali, Ansar Dine and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Killing the leadership, they argued, could lead to an internal collapse. 
 
 But with its attention and resources so focused on other conflicts in places like Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya, the Obama administration has rejected such strikes in favor of a more cautious, step-back strategy: helping African nations repel and contain the threat on their own. 
 
 Over the last four years, the United States has spent between $520 million and $600 million in a sweeping effort to combat Islamist militancy in the region without fighting the kind of wars it has waged in the Middle East. The program stretched from Morocco to Nigeria, and American officials heralded the Malian military as an exemplary partner. American Special Forces trained its troops in marksmanship, border patrol, ambush drills and other counterterrorism skills. 
 
 But all that deliberate planning collapsed swiftly when heavily armed, battle-hardened Islamist fighters returned from combat in Libya. They teamed up with jihadists like Ansar Dine, routed poorly equipped Malian forces and demoralized them so thoroughly that it set off a mutiny against the government in the capital, Bamako. 
 
 A confidential internal review completed last July by the Pentagon’s Africa Command concluded that the coup had unfolded too quickly for American commanders or intelligence analysts to detect any clear warning signs. 
 
 Photo 
 
 “The coup in Mali progressed very rapidly and with very little warning,” said Col. Tom Davis, a command spokesman. “The spark that ignited it occurred within their junior military ranks, who ultimately overthrew the government, not at the senior leadership level where warning signs might have been more easily noticed.” 
 
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 But one Special Operations Forces officer disagreed, saying, “This has been brewing for five years. The analysts got complacent in their assumptions and did not see the big changes and the impacts of them, like the big weaponry coming out of Libya and the different, more Islamic” fighters who came back. 
 
 The same American-trained units that had been seen as the best hope of repelling such an advance proved, in the end, to be a linchpin in the country’s military defeat. The leaders of these elite units were Tuaregs — the very ethnic nomads who were overrunning northern Mali. 
 
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 According to one senior officer, the Tuareg commanders of three of the four Malian units fighting in the north at the time defected to the insurrection “at the crucial moment,” taking fighters, weapons and scarce equipment with them. He said they were joined by about 1,600 other defectors from within the Malian Army, crippling the government’s hope of resisting the onslaught. 
 
 “The aid of the Americans turned out not to be useful,” said another ranking Malian officer, now engaged in combat. “They made the wrong choice,” he said of relying on commanders from a group that had been conducting a 50-year rebellion against the Malian state. 
 
 The virtual collapse of the Malian military, including units trained by United States Special Forces, followed by a coup led by an American-trained officer, Capt. Amadou Sanogo, astounded and embarrassed top American military commanders. 
 
 “I was sorely disappointed that a military with whom we had a training relationship participated in the military overthrow of an elected government,” Gen. Carter F. Ham, the head of the Africa Command, said in a speech at Brown University last month . “There is no way to characterize that other than wholly unacceptable.” 
 
 American officials defended their training, saying it was never intended to be nearly as comprehensive as what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We trained five units over five years but is that going to make a fully fledged, rock-solid military?” asked an American military official familiar with the region. 
 
 After the coup, extremists quickly elbowed out the Tuaregs in northern Mali and enforced a harsh brand of Islam on the populace, cutting off hands, whipping residents and forcing tens of thousands to flee. Western nations then adopted a containment strategy, urging African nations to cordon off the north until they could muster a force to oust the Islamists by the fall, at the earliest. To that end, the Pentagon is providing Mauritania new trucks and Niger two Cessna surveillance aircraft, along with training for both countries. 
 
 But even that backup plan failed, as Islamists pushed south toward the capital last week. With thousands of French citizens in Mali, its former colony, France decided it could not wait any longer, striking the militants at the front line and deep within their haven. 
 
 Some experts said that the foreign troops might easily retake the large towns in northern Mali, but that Islamist fighters have forced children to fight for them, a deterrent for any invading force, and would likely use bloody insurgency tactics. 
 
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 “They have been preparing these towns to be a death trap,” said Rudy Atallah, the former director of African counterterrorism policy for the Pentagon. “If an intervention force goes in there, the militants will turn it into an insurgency war.”
– France's foreign minister is optimistic about the campaign it started in Mali Friday, saying it will be over within "weeks." He rejected a comparison to the Afghanistan war, adding, "we have no intention of staying forever," the BBC reports. The country's defense minister was also positive, saying the mission is "developing favorably," even as Islamist fighters today seized Diabaly, a government-controlled territory 250 miles from the capital of Bamako. A Malian intelligence agent tells the AP that French pilots launched a raid near Diabaly this morning, which marks an expansion of the conflict—until now, raids were occurring in the distant north. The defense minister says Islamists are retreating in the east, but still causing France difficulty in the west. Aides to French President Francois Hollande say they are better trained and better armed than had been expected. More from the conflict: Mali rebels have sworn to take revenge; one leader for al-Qaeda offshoot Mujao tells AFP, "France has attacked Islam. We will strike at the heart of France." French authorities are on high alert for retaliatory attacks on home soil. The European Union will send military trainers to the Malian army late next month or early in March, Reuters reports, but the EU does not plan for those trainers to have any combat role in the country. And NATO says France has not asked it for any help, Reuters adds. A spokesperson says the organization is "concerned" about the situation in Mali and welcomes France's efforts, but "there has been no request, no discussion [within NATO] on the situation in Mali, the alliance as such is not involved in this crisis." Hollande is holding a cabinet meeting to discuss the crisis today, and the UN Security Council will also meet today at France's request. The New York Times takes an extensive look at the crisis and its background, noting that the US for years attempted to stop the Islamic militants from gaining a foothold in the region. But last year, many of the commanders trained by America defected. "It was a disaster," says a senior Malian officer. It was also an American-trained officer who led the coup that eventually overthrew Mali’s elected government. Meanwhile, a west African intervention force is putting together the promised troops who will be sent to Mali though it's not clear when they will arrive.