Breaking News - African troops, US airlift join Mali operation

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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 @NBCNewsWorldNiger 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.




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