France bombs Mali rebels, African states ready troops

RED ALERT

The French Foreign Ministry stepped up its security alert on Mali and parts of neighbouring Mauritania and Niger on Friday, extending its red alert - the highest level - to include Bamako.

A still image from video released by the French Army Communications Audiovisual office (ECPAD) on January 12, 2013 shows French Mirage 3000 aircrafts in flight. French forces carried out a second day of air strikes against Islamist rebels in Mali on Saturday and sent troops to protect the capital Bamako in an operation involving several hundred soldiers, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said. [Photo/Agencies]

France advised its 6,000 citizens in Mali to leave. Thousands more French live across West Africa, particularly in Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire.  

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Friday urged an "accelerated international engagement" and said the bloc would speed up plans to deploy 200 troops to train Malian forces.

A US official said the Pentagon was weighing options such as intelligence-sharing with France and logistics support. French officials suggest US surveillance capacity, including unmanned drones, would prove valuable in vast northern Mali.

Military analysts voiced doubt, however, about whether Friday's action was the start of a swift operation to retake northern Mali - a harsh, sparsely populated terrain the size of France - as neither equipment nor ground troops were ready.

"We're not yet at the big intervention," said Mark Schroeder, of the risk and security consultancy Stratfor.

More than two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bulwark of democracy - an image that unravelled in a matter of weeks after a military coup last March that paved the way for the Islamist rebellion.

Interim President Dioncounda Traore, under pressure for bolder action from Mali's military, declared a state of emergency on Friday. Traore cancelled a long-planned official trip to Paris on Wednesday because of the violence.

"Every Malian must henceforth consider themselves a soldier," he said on state TV.

On the streets of Bamako, some cars were driving around with French flags draped from the windows to celebrate Paris's intervention.

 "It's thanks to France that Mali will emerge from this crisis," said student Mohamed Camera. "This war must end now."