Tessalit, some 200 km (125 miles) north of the regional capital Kidal, is one of the main gateways into the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains where the rebels have sought refuge after fleeing major towns.
France says the rebels are also holding hostage in these mountains seven of its citizens, seized in recent years in the Sahara region.
Malian military sources said French and Chadian troops
had clashed with members of the Ansar Dine militant group in the region
around Kidal on Saturday.French attack helicopters and transport planes carrying special forces left the city of Gao to reinforce the French and Chadian contingent stationed at the airport in Kidal.
The town of Kidal itself is under the control of the pro-autonomy MNLA Tuareg rebel group, which occupied it after Ansar Dine fighters fled six days ago.
France has deployed
3,500 ground troops, fighter jets and armored vehicles in the
three-week-old Operation Serval (Wildcat) which has broken the
Islamists' 10-month grip on the towns of northern Mali, where they violently imposed sharia law.
"Never has a foreign intervention in Africa been as
popular as the French one in Mali," the president of neighboring Niger,
Mahamadou Issoufou, told Radio France International on Sunday, asking
France to maintain its military presence."The object of this war should be not just to liberate Mali but to free the whole Sahel from this menace, which threatens not just us but also Europe, France and the world."
MALIANS MOB HOLLANDE
Cheering, grateful
Malians mobbed Hollande during his one-day visit to Mali on Saturday,
when he congratulated French forces and pledged that they would finish
the job of restoring government control in the Sahel region state.
Thousands of
residents in the capital shouted "Thank you France!" as Hollande
addressed the crowd. "Hollande Our Saviour" read one banner.
"There are risks of terrorism, so we have not finished
our mission yet," Hollande told a news conference at the French
ambassador's residence in the capital Bamako.
He said France
would withdraw its troops from Mali once the West African country had
restored sovereignty over all its national territory and a U.N.-backed
African military force, which is being deployed, could take over from
the French.
"We do not foresee
staying indefinitely," he said, but he spelled out no specific timeframe
for the French mission.
The United States
and the European Union are backing the Mali intervention to counter the
threat of Islamist jihadists using the lawless Sahara as a launch pad
for attacks.
They are providing training, logistical and
intelligence support, but have ruled out sending their own ground
troops.
Malian Foreign
Minister Tieman Coulibaly welcomed the success of France's military
operation but added his voice to those urging the former colonial power
not to scale back its mission.
"Faced with
hardened fighters whose arsenals must be destroyed, we want this mission
to continue. Especially as the aerial dimension is very important," he
told France's Journal Du Dimanche newspaper.
Paris has pressed
Bamako to open negotiations with the MNLA, whose uprising last year
triggered a military coup in Bamako in March, as a step toward political
reunification of north and south Mali.
The MNLA seized
north Mali in April, before being pushed aside by a better-armed
Islamist alliance composed of al Qaeda's north African wing AQIM,
splinter group MUJWA and Ansar Dine.
Coulibaly played
down the possibility of direct talks with the MNLA but said it was clear
that there needed to be a greater devolution of power from the mainly
black African south to northern Mali, an underdeveloped region home to
many lighter-skinned Tuaregs and Arabs.
He called for
northern armed groups to lay down their weapons before peace
negotiations could begin and said Mali would press ahead with national
elections scheduled for July 31.
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