PARIS — France carried out new airstrikes overnight against Islamist fighters in central Mali as Paris pledged Tuesday to commit more troops to a potentially protracted campaign against extremists pressing south from a jihadist state they have forged in the desert north of the country.
The assessment that the conflict could be long and perilous appeared to be reflected in a call by France on Tuesday for Arab support to bolster an African force to fight the insurgents.
“We — not just the French but all nations — have to combat terrorism,” Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said during a visit to the United Arab Emirates in the Persian Gulf, announcing that donors would meet later this month, probably in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss financing an offensive against the rebels in Mali, Reuters reported.
“Everybody has to commit to oneself in fighting against terrorism,” Fabius said. “We are pretty confident that the Emirates will go into that direction as well.”
On Monday, the extrem- ists overran the central village of Diabaly, just hours after Fabius said France had blocked “the advance of the terrorists,” accomplishing its first mission in the conflict.
But the French defense minister acknowledged that the military situation was different. A column of militants had pushed within about 50 miles of one of Mali’s largest cities, forcing France to evacuate its citizens in the area and taking the Islamists a step closer to Bamako, Mali’s capital — closer, indeed, than they had been before French forces entered the fight.
Having entered the war quickly after an urgent plea from the Malian government, France now finds itself facing a well-equipped force of Islamist fighters — with little immediate help from its allies to overcome them.
French President Francois Hollande, who was also in the United Arab Emirates for a one-day meeting to discuss trade and the sale of advanced French Rafale warplanes, said Monday that French jets had “hit their targets” in overnight strikes on rebel forces, Reuters said.
“We will continue the deployment of forces on the ground and in the air,” Hollande said. “We have 750 troops deployed at the moment, and that will keep increasing so that as quickly as possible we can hand over to the Africans.”
French defense officials said the French force would be increased gradually to 2,500 soldiers, backed by armored vehicles.
Hollande said a deployment of troops from West African states, to be supported by the French military, could take a “good week.”
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Tuesday that President Barack Obama’s administration had ruled out putting any American troops on the ground in Mali, but was providing intelligence-gathering assistance to the French. Officials did not rule out having American aircraft land in the West African nation as part of future efforts to lend airlift and logistical support.
West African nations have promised 3,300 soldiers to fight alongside the Malian army, but they must be gathered, transported, trained and financed, and there have long been concerns about their readiness for the task ahead.
The European Union has promised 250 military trainers to aid the Malian army but has yet to deploy them, an action that may not happen before a special foreign ministers’ meeting later this week.
Beyond pledging to stop the Islamists from pushing ever deeper into Mali — a more challenging task in itself than French officials initially suggested — France has also vowed to help restore Mali’s territorial integrity, an apparent reference to driving the Islamists out of their vast, northern stronghold, an area twice the size of Germany.
Hollande told RFI radio early Tuesday that he believed that France could succeed in ousting the extremists in a week. But by afternoon he had outlined a far longer-term commitment.
“We have one objective: to make sure that when we leave, when we end this intervention, there is security in Mali, legitimate leaders, an electoral process and the terrorists no longer threaten its territory,” he said.
“We are confident about the speed with which we will be able to stop the aggressors, the enemy, these terrorists,” he added.
Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defense minister, said the French forces had driven the Islamists out of one village, Kona, but that another column of Islamists had overrun the Malian army in the village of Diabaly on the western side of the Niger River, a loss Malian officials confirmed.
“Diabaly is in the hands of the jihadists,” the parliamentary deputy from the area, Benco Ba, said Monday evening. “They’ve burned the church, and they’ve burned the military camp. They’ve entered the houses of the families.”
He said the Islamists had ordered the inhabitants to the village mosque to pray.
“We are completely taken aback by this because there was an important military post there,” Ba said.
He said the village had been infiltrated by foot, and that the invading force included many “children,” only 13 or 14 years old. French news reports said insurgent positions in the village had been attacked overnight by French warplanes.
The effect of the strikes was not immediately clear. Seeking to turn back the rebels, France has conducted strikes using Mirage warplanes based in the central African nation of Chad, and its air force has flown sorties from bases in France using the state-of-theart Rafale warplanes, according to French news reports. It also has deployed attack helicopters against Islamist forces.
Supplies for the French forces arrived in a steady stream Tuesday, part of the enormous logistics operation needed to support thousands of troops in the baking Sahara sun, a terrain the Islamists have operated in for nearly a decade.
Transport planes bringing military hardware landed in quick succession on the short airstrip: A giant Antonov, two C-17 Boeings and a C-160 disgorged equipment in preparation for a land offensive to try to seize back the northern territory held since March by three rebel groups affiliated with al-Qaida.
Burly French troops in fatigues carried boxes of munitions as armored personnel carriers lined up at the airport’s gasoline pump. Roughly 40 armored vehicles were driven in overnight by French soldiers stationed in Ivory Coast. They include the ERC-90, a six-wheeled vehicle mounted with a 90mm cannon. Dozens of French Marines camped inside an airport hangar, sleeping on pads laid on the cement floor.
A convoy of French armored cars was spotted late Tuesday heading toward Diabaly, said a resident of the nearby town of Segou, who declined to be named out of fears for her safety.
Eduardo del Buey, a U.N. spokesman, said Monday that an estimated 30,000 Malian civilians may have been displaced since the latest fighting began last week.
Information for this article was contributed by Steven Erlanger, Alan Cowell, Adam Nossiter and Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times and by Rukmini Callimachi, Baba Ahmed, Cassandra Vinograd, Lori Hinnant, Elaine Ganley and Sylvie Corbet of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/16/2013