French forces have extended their attacks in Mali after launching airstrikes around Timbuktu and Gao as they target Islamist militant command posts.
Jean-Yves Le Drian, the French defence minister, said ground troops had not yet taken another target, Diabaly, but expected positive news "in the coming hours".
He added: "French forces, and notably air forces, are striking terrorist strongholds. That's the case in the region of Gao, it's the case in the Timbuktu region. It will continue."
Yesterday French troops in armoured vehicles advanced towards Diabaly, which was abandoned by Islamist rebels after days of airstrikes.
Television showed the wreckage of the Islamists' pick-up trucks, some with heavy machine guns mounted on them, lying charred and twisted in the village.
Commanders of French and Malian forces have set up their operations centre in the nearby town of Niono, 190 miles northeast of the capital Bamako.
"Our principal concern is that a section of the population may have joined the jihadists," said Colonel Seydou Sogoba, head of the Malian military operation. "The war against the Islamists is not an easy one. They come in and mix with the local population."
Some Islamist fighters had shaved off their beards and swapped their robes for jeans to blend in with locals, he said.
France has deployed 2000 troops and its planes have pounded rebel columns and bases for 10 days, effectively halting an Islamist advance on the capital.
French intervention was aimed at stopping a coalition of Muslim militants using Mali's north as a springboard for attacks in Africa and on the West.
The Islamist alliance, grouping al Qaeda's North African wing AQIM and home-grown Malian militant groups, has imposed harsh sharia law in northern Mali, including amputations and the destruction of moderate Sufi Muslim shrines.
In Paris, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius brushed off the idea that France risked getting embroiled in a guerrilla war.
Islamist fighters have pledged to turn Mali into a new Afghanistan, but he said: "In Afghanistan, there was no democratic regime. Here, there's a democratic regime even if it needs to be perfected."
The stakes in Mali rose dramatically this week when Islamist gunmen cited France's intervention as the reason behind the hostage-taking at an Algerian gas plant. More than 50 people including 23 hostages died when Algerian forces retook the plant.
The conflict in Mali and the hostage crisis in Algeria have raised concerns about the radicalisation of the broader Sahel region, which is awash with weapons from the Libyan civil war.
At a meeting with heads of state from West African regional group ECOWAS in Ivory Coast on Saturday, Mr Fabius appealed for international funding for a UN-backed African mission to oust the Islamists from the region.
Military experts say France and its African allies must deploy troops fast to capitalise on gains and stop insurgents regrouping, but African forces are hampered by a lack of transport and supplies. Nigeria, Niger and Togo have put in a few hundred troops and 50 Senegalese soldiers left for Bamako yesterday.
Human Rights Watch warned on Saturday it had received reports of serious abuses, including killings, being committed by Malian security forces against civilians in Niono.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article