Update: {18.1.13}French air forces dislodged the Islamists holding the village of Diabaly. According to reports from Mali the fighters fled early this morning abandoning arms and vehicles. Militants also abandoned Konna Thursday night, a town Mali's army failed to retake before France intervened in the struggle. Troops from the west African nations of Chad and Nigeria began arriving in the capital of Bamako on Thursday. Al Qaeda linked jihadists took foreign nationals hostage in Algeria in retaliation for that nation granting France use of its airspace. Algerian forces stormed the natural gas plant were they were held today. Some 30 hostages including one American were killed along with 18 jihadists. There are apparently some hostages still being held. AP reports 100 out of 132 captives have been freed.
{16.1.13}French forces struck back at Islamic insurrectionists in the former colony of Mali last week. The insurrectionists, some connected to Al Qaeda, control the country's Sahel north and were steadily advancing south before French warplanes began operations. Now, French troops are actively engaged on the ground with their Mali army allies attempting to wrest control of the village of Diabaly from the militants who captured it on Monday.[map] They have lodged themselves amongst the civilian population making airstrikes too risky. French officers are impressed by the sophistication and discipline of the battle-tested jihadists, some of whom are coming to the fight from across Mali's borders with Algeria and Mauritania. According to reports from Mali, the southern part of the country which is ethnically distinct from the Arab and Tuareg Sahel region generally supports the intervention by their former colonial masters since the Bamako government was in danger of falling to the Islamic militants. The national government has been in disarray since an army officer coup last year, and asked France to aid it in combating insurrectionists. The north historically chaffed under rule from the south. Nomadic Tuareg rebelled against what they consider their marginalization in a poor, corrupt country. The latest 2012 uprising occurred when seasoned Tuareg fighters for Muammar Gaddafi returned home with Libyan weapons. They ousted the national army in the north and imposed sharia law. The main actor is reported to be Ansar Dine, an armed militia group under the command of Iyad Ag Ghali, a Tuareg chief who established a modus vivendi with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Mahgreb.
Mali's army has been mauled by the insurrectionists, and the army's failure to retake the town of Konna prompted French intervention last Friday. France plans to assemble a west African force approved by the UN (ECOWAS) to take the lead in combatting the militants. There are about 800 French soldiers now deployed of a projected 2500 man force, equal to their peak deployment in Afghanistan. Insurgents number a few thousand. Whether the Islamic militants will be routed or the fight deteriorates into a prolonged standoff remains to be determined. President François Hollande, a socialist, is sensitive to charges of neocolonial interference in Mali, insisting that France has no interest in a "bygone era" and that its intervention is "under exceptional circumstances and for a limited time." Nevertheless, the possibility of a militant Islamist rump state so close to France's uranium supply in Niger must figure in Élysée's calculations. The United States may give France logistical support according to the Pentagon. Just think, now you know where in the world is Timbuktu!