France is expected to more than triple its troop numbers in Mali as raids continue on Islamist insurgents following overnight air strikes on a small town that had been seized by the rebels.

Sources close to the French defence minister said the number of French troops deployed in the west African country would "gradually" reach 2,500. There are currently 800 French troops in Mali, with hundreds more on the way over the next few days.

France carried out a fifth day of air strikes in a vast desert area seized last year by an Islamist alliance, which combines al-Qaida's north African wing, AQIM, with Mali's home-grown Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (Mojwa) and Ansar Dine rebel groups.

In a news conference in the United Arab Emirates, the French president, Franç ois Hollande said France had three aims: to stop the rebel advances, to secure the capital, Bamako, and to help the Mali government regain control of the whole country.

He said France would take a lesser role "as soon as there is an African force, in coming days or weeks", adding that France did not intend to stay.

Hollande said: "France should only intervene in Africa in exceptional circumstances and for a limited time. That's what we will do." In response to questions about a return to France's controversial role in its former colonies, he said the Mali intervention, in an international legal framework with UN backing, had nothing to do with the practices of "a bygone era".

But he added that France's role was to ensure that "when we end our intervention, Mali is safe, has legitimate authorities, an electoral process and there are no more terrorists threatening its territory".

Commentators in France said this would imply a drawn-out presence in the poor west African country, which is in political disarray following a coup last year and the fall of the desert north to Islamist groups, who operate a drug trafficking and kidnap economy in northern Mali and other Sahelian countries.

Asked what France intended to do with the insurgents, Hollande said: "Destroy them. Take them captive, if possible."

West African defence chiefs were meeting in Bamako to approve plans to speed up the deployment of 3,300 regional troops, foreseen in a UN-backed intervention plan to be led by Africans. African troops are expected to begin to be deployed within a week. Troops from the Ecowas grouping of west African states are expected to bolster the dishevelled Malian army.

A convoy of 40 to 50 armed trucks carrying French troops crossed into Mali on Tuesday from Ivory Coast, where they were stationed.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk

Mali is the new frontier against Islamist groups which have made much of their links to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. Nigerians should be increasingly concerned about the threat posed by Islamist rebels, now armed with weapons from Libyan armouries emptied during the revolution there.