By Bate Felix, Reuters
NIONO, Mali - French troops advanced cautiously toward northern Mali on Sunday amid fears of ambush by al-Qaida-linked fighters, while its fighter jets pounded the Islamists' strongholds in the desert near Timbuktu.
In the central Malian town of Diabaly, seized by Islamist fighters on Monday, the wreckage of the Islamists' charred pickup trucks lay abandoned among the mud-brick buildings, television images showed.
Residents of the town, some 220 miles from the capital Bamako, said Islamists had fled into the bush after French airstrikes.
The commanders of French and Malian forces, who set up their operations center in the nearby town of Niono, said their forces were moving slowly toward Diabaly after reports that Islamist fighters had abandoned their turbans and flowing robes to blend in with local residents.
"There are risks of mines and booby traps in houses, that is why we have to be careful," a French commander who would be identified only as Colonel Frederic told reporters sheltering from the sun in a grove of trees.
France has deployed 2,000 ground troops and its war planes have pounded rebel columns and bases for 10 days, turning back an Islamist advance towards the riverside capital which Paris said would have toppled Mali's government.
French troops advance towards the Jihadists controlling the northern half of Mali. NBC's Rohit Kachroo reports from Central Mali.
France now aims, with international support, to dislodge the Islamists from Mali's vast desert north, an area the size of Texas, before they use it to launch attacks on the West.
The Islamist alliance, grouping al-Qaida's North African wing AQIM and home-grown Malian militant groups Ansar Dine and MUJWA, has imposed harsh sharia law in northern Mali, including amputations and the destruction of ancient shrines sacred to moderate Sufi Muslims.
Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said French Rafale and Mirage planes had bombed Islamists' camps and logistics bases around the ancient caravan town of Timbuktu as well as Gao, the largest city of the north. The strikes were aimed at preventing Islamist fighters from recovering to launch a counterattack.
"The terrorists ... have diversified tactics. They can leave a town at any time or mingle with the population to avoid airstrikes," he said. "It's urban guerrilla warfare as well as a war so it's very complicated to manage."
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius denied Mali could spiral into another Afghanistan, saying that Islamist fighters did not have the support of the local moderate Muslim majority.
The stakes in Mali rose dramatically this week when Islamist gunmen cited France's intervention as their reason for attacking a desert gas plant in neighboring Algeria, seizing hundreds of hostages. Algeria carried out an assault on Saturday to end the siege and said on Sunday it expected a heavy death toll.
The conflict in Mali and the hostage crisis in Algeria have raised concerns about the radicalization of the broader Sahel region, which is awash with weapons pillaged from the armories of toppled Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.
Additional reporting by Brian Love in Paris, Abdoualye Massalatchi and Nathalie Prevost in Niamey, Media Coulibaly in Niono and Anthony Rickles in Sevare.
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