(http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Photo/_new/130122-mali-hmed-342p.photoblog600.jpg)Eric Feferberg / AFP - Getty ImagesA Malian soldier holds a machine gun as he stands guard at the entrance of a strategic bridge over the Niger river on Jan. 22, 2013, near Markala, north of Bamako. Mali's army chief today said his French-backed forces could reclaim the northern towns of Gao and fabled Timbuktu from Islamists in a month, as the United States began airlifting French troops to Mali. By Pascal Fletcher and Daniel Flynn, ReutersChadian forces advanced towards the Malian border on Tuesday as an African troop deployment and a U.S. military airlift swelled international support for French operations against Islamist rebels occupying the north of Mali.
An armored column of Chadian troops, experienced in desert operations, moved north from the Niger capital Niamey on the road to Ouallam, some 60 miles from the Malian border, where Nigerien troops are already stationed.
France, which launched air strikes in Mali 11 days ago to halt a surprise Islamist offensive toward the capital Bamako, has urged a swift deployment of the planned U.N.-mandated African force to back up its 2,150 soldiers already there.
The number of French troops could be boosted to more than 3,000 in the coming days and weeks, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.
The aim of the intervention is to prevent northern Mali from becoming a launchpad for international attacks by al-Qaida and its local allies in North and West Africa. Fears of this increased sharply after a hostage-taking raid by Islamist militants last week on a gas plant in Algeria.
An entry into Mali from Niger by part of the African force would widen the front of operations against the Islamist alliance in the north that groups al-Qaida's North African wing AQIM and the Malian militant groups Ansar Dine and MUJWA.
On Monday, French and Malian armored columns moved into the towns of Diabaly and Douentza in central Mali after the rebels who had seized them fled into the bush to avoid air strikes. Diabaly is only 220 miles north of Bamako, while Douentza is 500 miles away from the riverside capital.
Follow @NBCNewsWorld (https://twitter.com/NBCNewsWorld)Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, who visited the troops at Ouallam, condemned the Islamist alliance, and an imam, or Muslim cleric, said prayers for the troops.
"We are going to war. A war imposed on us by traffickers of all kinds, an unjust war, from which the peaceful citizens of northern Mali are suffering terribly," Issoufou told the forces.
"I am confident in your burning desire for victory."
France says its troops will remain in Mali until they have completely dislodged the Islamist fighters from the north and fair elections can be held in its former colony.
In support of France, the United States has started transporting French soldiers and equipment to Mali from the Istres air base in southern France. Washington on Tuesday completed the fifth of an estimated 30 flights in an airlift expected to run for about a week.
A Reuters correspondent in Bamako saw a U.S. military cargo plane land at the international airport and offload about 40 French soldiers, jeeps, and other equipment.
NBCNews