AP

Saeed al-Shihri, deputy leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in a photo from undated video posted on a militant-leaning Web site in January 2009, and provided by the SITE Intelligence Group.

SANAA, Yemen — Al-Qaida's No. 2 in Yemen died in a U.S. drone attack last year in southern Yemen, the country's official news agency and a security official said Thursday.

Saeed al-Shihri, a Saudi national who fought in Afghanistan and spent six years in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, was wounded in a missile attack in the southern city of Saada on Oct. 28, according to SABA news agency.

The agency said that he had fallen into a coma since then. It was not clear when he actually died.

A security official said that the missile had been fired by a U.S.-operated, unmanned drone aircraft. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Yemen had previously announced al-Shihri's death in a Sept. 10 drone attack in the province of Hadramawt. A subsequent DNA test however proved that the body recovered was not that of al-Shihri.

On Oct. 22, al-Shihri denied his own death in audio message posted on Jihadi websites.

Also known by the nom de guerre Abu Sufyan al-Azdi, he denounced at the time the Yemeni government for spreading the "rumor about my death ... as though the killing of the mujahideen (holy warriors) by America is a victory to Islam and Muslims."

Al-Shihri went through Saudi Arabia's famous "rehabilitation" institutes after he returned to his home country, but then he fled to Yemen and became deputy to Nasser al-Wahishi, the leader of an al-Qaida group.

Slideshow: Life goes on in Guantanamo

John Moore / Getty Images

President Obama's one-year deadline to close the facility has long passed as shutting it down has proven complicated and controversial.

Launch slideshow

Al-Shihri's death is considered a major blow to al-Qaida's Yemen branch, known as al-Qaida in The Arabian Peninsula. Washington considers it the most dangerous of the group's offshoots.

Al-Qaida in Yemen has been linked to several attempted attacks on U.S. targets, including the foiled Christmas Day 2009 bombing of an airliner over Detroit and explosives-laden parcels intercepted aboard cargo flights last year.

In 2011, a high-profile U.S. drone strike killed U.S.-born Anwar al-Awlaki, who had been linked to the planning and execution of several attacks targeting U.S. and Western interests, including the attempt to down a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009 and the plot to bomb cargo planes in 2010.

Yemen, the Arab world's poorest nation, has fallen into lawlessness since the start of an uprising in 2011, when millions of Yemenis took to the streets demanding the ouster of their longtime authoritarian ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Al-Qaida militants exploited the unrest and took control of large swaths of land in the south until last spring, when the military, backed by the U.S., managed to drive hundreds of militants out of major cities and towns.

Since then, the group has carried out deadly attacks targeting mostly security and military officials, including suicide bombings that targeted military and security compounds.

Related: 

UN to investigate legality of drone killings

Tom Gianni / AP

David Coleman Headley is shown in a courtroom sketch from May 2011.

CHICAGO - David Headley, an American who admitted scouting targets for the 2008 Islamic militant raid on Mumbai and later agreed to testify against the plotters to avoid the death penalty, was sentenced on Thursday to 35 years in prison.

The sentence, handed down by U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber, was the maximum sought by federal prosecutors.

The attacks killed more than 160 people, including six Americans. Headley, a 52-year-old U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent, admitted videotaping sites that were targeted by the Mumbai attackers.

He was arrested in 2009 and pleaded guilty to 12 charges, including conspiracy to bomb places of public use and commit murder and plotting an attack on a Danish newspaper.

After entering his plea in 2010, Headley cooperated with U.S. investigators and foreign intelligence agencies to avoid the death penalty and extradition to India, Pakistan or Denmark, agreeing to testify in foreign judicial proceedings, the government said.

In a memorandum filed with Judge Leinenweber earlier this week, the government said "there is little question that life imprisonment would be an appropriate punishment for Headley's incredibly serious crimes but for the significant value provided by his immediate and extensive cooperation."

Last week, Judge Leinenweber sentenced Pakistani-born businessman Tahawwur Rana to 14 years in federal prison for providing support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the group blamed for the Mumbai attacks.

ALGIERS, Algeria — The U.S. State Department on Monday confirmed that three American citizens were among those killed during the hostage-taking by Islamic militants at a gas field in Algeria.

The death toll from the four-day siege deep in the Sahara has risen to at least 67, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said Monday on Algerian televsion. The number includes 38 foreign workers and 29 militants who died in the crisis which came to an end in a bloody confrontation with Algerian forces.

Five foreigners remained unaccounted for, Sellal said.

A Japanese government source said the Algerian government had informed Tokyo that nine Japanese had been killed, the highest toll among the non-Algerians working there.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland on Monday identified the three Americans who were killed as Victor Lynn Lovelady, Gordon Lee Rowan and Frederick Buttaccio, who had been named earlier.

"We are also aware of seven U.S. citizens who survived the attack," Nuland said. "Due to privacy considerations, we have no further information to provide.

"We will continue to work closely with the Government of Algeria to gain a fuller understanding of the terrorist attack of last week and how we can work together moving forward to combat such threats in the future," Nuland said.

'Blessed operation'
One-eyed veteran Islamist fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of al-Qaida.

"We in al-Qaida announce this blessed operation," he said in a video, according to Sahara Media, a regional website. He said about 40 attackers participated in the raid, roughly matching the government's figures for fighters killed and captured.

The fighters swooped out of the desert on Wednesday and seized the In Anema plant and residential barracks nearby.

About 800 people, including some 700 Algerians and 100 foreigners, managed to escape after militants stormed.

Algerian troops launched their first raids on the site on Thursday, but the standoff continued until Saturday, when government forces captured or killed the remaining militants and ended the siege.

According to Salell, the attackers tried to blow up the gas facility on Friday night by planting explosives in a gas pipe and trying to detonate it. The plant produces about 10 percent of the countries gas exports.

The militants demanded an end to French air strikes against Islamist fighters in neighboring Mali that had begun five days earlier. However, U.S. and European officials doubt such a complex raid could have been organized quickly enough to have been conceived as a direct response to the French military intervention.

On Monday, Salell said that a Canadian was one of the coordinators of the attack. Ottawa said it was investigating reports that Canadian nationals were involved.

The siege turned bloody on Thursday when the Algerian army opened fire saying fighters were trying to escape with their prisoners. Survivors said Algerian forces blasted several trucks in a convoy carrying both hostages and their captors.

Nearly 700 Algerian workers and more than 100 foreigners escaped, mainly on Thursday when the fighters were driven from the residential barracks. Some captors remained holed up in the industrial complex until Saturday when they were overrun.

Sellal said negotiating with the kidnappers was essentially impossible.

"Their goal was to kidnap foreigners," he said. "They wanted to flee to Mali with the foreigners, but once they were surrounded they started killing the first hostages."

The bloodshed has strained Algeria's relations with its Western allies, some of whom have complained about being left in the dark while the decision to storm the compound was being taken. Nevertheless, Britain and France both defended the Algerian military action.

"It's easy to say that this or that should have been done. The Algerian authorities took a decision and the toll is very high but I am a bit bothered ... when the impression is given that the Algerians are open to question,'' said French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. "They had to deal with terrorists.''

British Prime Minister David Cameron said in a televised statement: "Of course people will ask questions about the Algerian response to these events, but I would just say that the responsibility for these deaths lies squarely with the terrorists who launched this vicious and cowardly attack.

''We should recognize all that the Algerians have done to work with us and to help and coordinate with us. I'd like to thank them for that. We should also recognize that the Algerians too have seen lives lost among their soldiers."

The Islamists' assault has tested Algeria's relations with the outside world and exposed the vulnerability of multinational oil operations in the Sahara.

But physical damage to the gas plant in In Anema was minor, state news service APS reported, citing Oil Minister Youcef Yousfi. The plant would start up again in two days, he said.

Algeria, scarred by the civil war with Islamist insurgents in the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, insisted from the start of the crisis there would be no negotiation in the face of terrorism.

France especially needs close cooperation from Algeria to crush Islamist rebels in northern Mali.

Catherine Chomiak, NBC News, Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Mohamed Al-Sayaghi / Reuters

Army checkpoints in Yemen search for militants, Saturday

SANAA, Yemen — More than 10 suspected al-Qaida operatives were killed by an explosion in a house in south Yemen where they were making bombs and at least three others died in a drone strike, tribal and official sources said on Sunday. 

A bomb ripped through a house in the province of al-Bayda on Saturday night, the state news agency Saba and a local official said. Three other suspected militants were killed in a drone strike in the central province of Maarib, also on Saturday, tribal sources and the Ministry of Defense said.

Yemen's government has been fighting a powerful branch of al-Qaida that took advantage of chaos in the impoverished state two years ago during a popular uprising against former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula is considered by Western governments to be one of the most active and dangerous wing of the global network founded by Osama bin Laden, and has attempted a number of attacks against U.S. targets.

The house destroyed in al Bayda had been used for making bombs, an official from the area told Reuters on Sunday.

"We heard a massive explosion that terrified people and when we went to the house it was destroyed and everyone there was dead," the official said.

In Maarib, a pilotless plane carried out two strikes against a car, a witness said.

"One of the strikes missed the target and the other hit the car and left the bodies of the three people in it completely charred," the witness told Reuters by telephone from the area.

He said unidentified people evacuated the bodies while tribesmen blocked the main road linking the capital of Maarib province with Sanaa on Saturday after the strikes.

The Yemeni Defence Ministry said in an SMS text message that a number of militants were killed in two air strikes but gave no further details.

Earlier this month, dozens of armed tribesmen took to the streets in southern Yemen to protest drones they said killed innocent civilians and fed anger against the United States.

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi spoke openly in favor of the strikes during a trip to the United States in September.

Praised by the U.S. ambassador in Sanaa as being more effective against al-Qaida than his predecessor, Hadi was quoted as saying in September that he personally approved every attack. Hadi has not commented on the most recent strikes.

AQAP offshoot, Ansar al-Sharia seized a number of towns in the south in 2011 but Yemeni government forces retook the areas in a U.S.-backed offensive in June.

Reuters TV

A wounded man is cared for in a hospital in Tigantourine, Algeria, on Jan. 18, 2013 after being freed from Islamist militant captors at a gas field in Algeria.

The militants had filled five jeeps with hostages and begun to move when Algerian government attack helicopters opened up on them, leaving four in smoking ruins. The fifth vehicle crashed, allowing an Irish hostage inside to clamber out to safety with an explosive belt still strapped around his neck.

Three days into the crisis at a natural gas plant deep in the Sahara, it remained unclear how many had perished in the faceoff between Africa's most uncompromising militant group and the region's most ruthless military.

The government said 12 workers, both foreign and Algerian, were confirmed dead. But the extremists have put the number at 35. And the government attack Thursday on the convoy — as pieced together from official, witness and news media accounts —suggested the death toll could go higher. The U.S. government confirmed that one of the dead was a Texan, Frederick Buttaccio.

Meanwhile, the al-Qaida-linked Masked Brigade behind the operation offered to trade two American hostages for two terrorists behind bars in the U.S., including the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing — a deal the U.S. rejected out of hand.

The remote In Amenas plant, jointly run by BP, Norway's Statoil and Algeria's state-owned oil company, is deep in the featureless desert. The Algerian government has released few details about the continuing siege.

By Friday, however, the outlines of the takeover by Islamic militants were coming into focus. The attack had been in the works for two months, a member of the Masked Brigade told an online Mauritanian news outlet that often carries al-Qaida-related announcements. The band of attackers included militants from Algeria, Mali, Egypt, Niger, Mauritania and Canada, he said.

He said militants targeted Algeria because they expected the country to support the international effort to root out extremists in neighboring Mali.

Instead of passing through Algeria's relatively well-patrolled deserts, the attackers came in from southern Libya, where there is little central government and smugglers have long reigned supreme, according to Algeria's Interior Minister Daho Ould Kabila.

He said the attackers consisted of about 30 men armed with rocket launchers and machine guns and under the direct supervision of the Masked Brigade's founder himself, Moktar Belmoktar, a hardened, one-eyed Algerian militant who has battled the Algerian government for years and went on to build a Saharan smuggling and kidnapping empire linked to al-Qaida.

Early Wednesday morning, they crept across the border, 60 miles from the natural gas plant, and fell on a pair of buses taking foreign workers to the airport. The buses' military escort drove off the attackers in a blaze of gunfire that sent bullets zinging over the heads of the crouching workers. A Briton and an Algerian, probably a security guard, were killed.

One American killed, 2 escape in hostage crisis, U.S. officials say; two others reportedly still held

Frustrated, the militants turned to the vast gas complex, divided between the workers' living quarters and the refinery itself, and seized hostages, the Algerian government said.

The takeover soon turned into a standoff as military units from a nearby base surrounded the complex.

Algerian TV via Reuters TV

A British man is interviewed by Algerian TV about the In Amenas hostage taking. "I think they did a fantastic job. I was very impressed with the Algerian army,

Algerians interviewed by French radio described militants knocking down doors in the living quarters, saying they were looking for foreigners. The foreign workers, including Americans, Britons, French, Norwegians, Romanians, Malaysians and Japanese, were separated from the Algerians and kept under close guard, wrapped with explosive belts. The Algerians for the most part were allowed to wander freely around the complex, and some were released, according to the state news agency.

Alexandre Berceaux, a Frenchman who was later rescued by Algerian soldiers, described two harrowing days of confusion hiding in his room as Algerian colleagues supplied him with food.

"I stayed hidden in my room for almost 40 hours," he told Europe 1 radio, saying he hid under the bed and didn't even realize when his ordeal was over.

The militants declared that the takeover was prompted by France's attacks on al-Qaida-linked rebels in Mali, and they demanded that the intervention end or the hostages would pay for it.

That night, Kabila, Algeria's top security official, announced that in accordance to Algeria's longstanding policy, "we reject all negotiations with the group." Despite regular elections, Algeria is run by a coterie of generals and ruling party leaders who got the country through a bloody, decade-long Islamist rebellion with brutal tactics that earned them the nickname "the eradicators."

On Thursday afternoon, Algerian military forces saw a five- jeep convoy moving from one part of the complex to another. Fearing the kidnappers were trying to make a break for it, they sent attack helicopters into action.

Irish electrician Stephen McFaul was in that convoy and made it out alive as the world exploded around him.

"Four of the jeeps were taken out and everybody in them was killed," McFaul's brother, Brian, told the Irish Times. "The jeep my brother was in crashed and my brother made break for it," with a belt of explosives strapped around his neck.

The kidnappers called the Mauritanian news service ANI to say that 35 hostages and 15 of their fighters had been killed in the bloodbath — a figure that was impossible to confirm. The kidnappers told ANI that they were just trying to consolidate hostages into a single location when the Algerians attacked.

By Thursday night, the state news agency announced that the assault was over and that special forces had secured the plant, but the next day it would emerge that they had taken only the living quarters. The hostages and their kidnappers remained ensconced in the refinery.

An international outcry mounted over the Algerians' handling of the crisis. Experts noted that this is how they have always dealt with terrorists.

"It's the Russian training for dealing with terrorism," said Matieu Guidere, a longtime expert on al-Qaida and Algeria. "The message is: We will terrorize the terrorists. ... This is clear. The life of hostages is nothing in the balance."

The Algerian government insisted it had to intervene to prevent a catastrophe.

Related:

Expert: Islamists' Algeria raid could inspire copycat attacks
Details emerge in militant takeover, rescue operation at Algeria gas field
Violence in Mali, Algeria raises fresh fear of radical Islam
US military cargo planes to help French in Mali
Algerian militant dubbed 'Mr Marlboro' raked in millions from kidnappings

The fate of dozens of hostages seized by Islamists at a gas field in Algeria remained unclear early Friday, hours after the Algerian military stormed the site.

At least six people, and perhaps many more, were killed, The Associated Press reported, and dozens were unaccounted for.

Algerian state media reported Thursday evening that the military operation had ended at the remote desert facility where dozens of workers — including three Americans — had been held hostage. The Algerian government was reported as saying two Filipinos and two British hostages had been killed.

Accounts of the number of hostages and militants killed in the operation differed wildly — ranging from four to 35 — in reports from regional sources cited by The Associated Press and Reuters.

Among those unaccounted for were Americans, Britons, French, Norwegians, Romanians, Malaysians, Japanese and Algerians.

Some of the hostages reportedly escaped from the natural gas pumping plant, near In Amenas, close to the border with Libya and 800 miles from the Algerian capital.

An unknown number of hostages left the country on a charter flight and were expected to land at London's Gatwick airport near midnight Thursday, according to BP, which operates the gas complex. The plane had not arrived as of 3:15 a.m. Friday.

The Islamist militants stormed the plant and workers' housing before dawn on Wednesday seizing up to 41 hostages in one of the biggest international hostage incidents in decades.

The militants have demanded an end to the French military campaign in Mali where ground troops and air forces of the former colonial power are backing Mali's military in offensive against Islamist rebels linked to al-Qaida in that country.

The group that has claimed responsibility for the gas plant raid is said to be led by an Islamic militant called Mokhtar bel Mokhtar, whose nicknames include "The Uncatchable" and "Mr. Marlboro."

According to the AP, militants with the Masked Brigade, a Mali-based al-Qaida offshoot, provided updates through a Mauritanian news organization that said the Algerians attacked when the militants tried to move hostages from the energy complex. The group claimed that 35 hostages and 15 militants died but seven hostages survived the helicopter attack on its convoy.

An Algerian security official says the decision to send forces came because the militants were being stubborn and wanted to flee with the hostages.

U.S. officials called the hostage situation "murky" and said the United States is working with the Algerian government and other affected nations to try to resolve the situation as quickly and securely as possible.

"It's in a remote area of Algeria, near the Libyan border," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. "The security of our Americans who are held hostage is our highest priority, but of course we care deeply about the other Algerian and foreign hostages as well."

Clinton said she could not provide any additional information about the situation. 

An Ireland government spokesman said Thursday that an Irish national held at the In Amenas gas plant had "made contact with his family and is understood to be safe and well, and no longer a hostage."

Sky News in London identified the Irish survivor as Stephen McFaul, 46, from west Belfast.

In an interview with the television station, McFaul's father Christopher said he was "delighted" by the news but added he felt "sorry for the other hostages that are still there."

He also described the last 48 hours as "hell".

Stephen McFaul's son, Dylan, also spoke to the Sky reporters: "I can't even explain the excitement. I can't wait until he gets home again," he said, adding that he would tell his father "he's never going back there and I'm not letting him".

A local resident near the plant told Reuters the Algerian military had opened fire and that "many people" were killed.

Faycal Metaqui, a journalist at Algerian newspaper El Watan, told French news channel BFM that he was unable to confirm with authorities the earlier reports that some hostages had escaped.

"Sadly, there have been some reports of casualties, but we are still lacking any confirmed or reliable information," said a statement from oil giant BP, which is a joint owner of the plant.

Related content:

In Mali, land of 'gangster-jihadists,' ransoms help fuel the movement
France launches 'tough' ground offensive against Mali's Islamist rebels

Nancy Ing, Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube of NBC News, contributed to this report.

Belmokhtar Brigade via Reuters

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, identified by the Algerian interior ministry as the leader of a militant Islamic group, is pictured in a screen capture from an undated video distributed by the Bel Mokhtar Brigade obtained by Reuters January 16, 2013.

The one-eyed al-Qaida-linked militant who is reportedly holding Western hostages at an oil field in Algeria is no stranger to kidnappings.

Mokhtar bel Mokhtar, the leader of a militant jihadist band until recently associated with the al-Qaida in the Islamic Magreb terror group, has reaped tens of millions in ransom payments, according to current and former U.S. officials.

Mokhtar, 40, is an Algerian who lost his eye fighting Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s, NBC sources said. After a falling out with other local al-Qaida leaders, he established his own group in the Sahara.

Mokhtar has since claimed to have made ties to al-Qaida central, formerly led by Osama bin Laden and now headed by Ayman al-Zawahri.

U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told NBC News that Mokhtar had focused on low-level kidnappings, and thanks to Europeans paying large ransom demands, his group flourished financially. One U.S. official said Mokhtar's group was charging "as much as 7 to 9 million dollars a pop," for each hostage ransomed. "That money went directly to purchasing arms," added the official. "The arms market," he said, is "saturated, mainly because of the Libyan arms depots "liberated" by rebels during the Arab Spring.

Mokhtar, known as "Mr. Marlboro" is heavily involved in black market sales of weapons, drugs and cigarettes, U.S. officials say. He married into a leading Tuareg clan. Tuaregs have long controlled smuggling and other black market operations in West Africa.

Some Westerners reported killed in Algeria siege

France, the sources say, had refused ransom requests, but private individuals have paid to get the kidnapped released.

According to an expert's brief compiled for the U.S. Justice Department in connection with a recent New York terrorism case, Mokhtar’s experience in Afghanistan emboldened him and he joined the nascent Armed Islamic Group of Algeria, a large faction growing inside Algeria. Within a few years, he rose to became the commander-in-chief of the "Ninth Zone," a desert area where he established camps and eventually married into a family from the local Tuareg tribesmen. 

The Justice report, which was prepared by terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann, who also serves as a consultant for various U.S. law enforcement agencies in terrorism cases, cites an interview with Mauritanian media in which Mokhtar acknowledged forging "connections with al-Qaida.” Mokhtar also disputed reports his group was involved in drug smuggling. Kohlmann also is an NBC News terrorism analyst.

"Smuggling or dealing drugs, near or far, or even to the infidel countries, is among the clearest prohibitions in Allah's Shariah," he said, according to the report. 

Related content:

In Mali, land of 'gangster-jihadists,' ransoms help fuel the movement

France launches 'tough' ground offensive against Mali's Islamist rebels

Eric Feferberg / AFP - Getty Images

Malian people watch as a French armored vehicle leaves Bamako to begin deploying to the north of Mali as part of the "Serval" operations on Wednesday.In a joint offensive launched with Malian soldiers on Jan. 11, France is using air and ground power to defeat a militant Islamist group controlling the north of the country.

BAMAKO, Mali — French troops launched their first ground operation against Islamist rebels in Mali on Wednesday in a crucial action to dislodge al-Qaida-linked fighters who have resisted six days of airstrikes.

France called for international support against Islamist insurgents it says are a threat to Africa and the West and acknowledged it faced a long fight against well-equipped and determined militant fighters who seized Mali's vast desert north last year.

After Islamist threats to exact revenge for France's dramatic intervention, an al-Qaida-linked group claimed responsibility for a raid on a gas field in Algeria in a number of foreign workers were believed to have been kidnapped.

A column of French armored vehicles moved into position on Tuesday at the town of Niono, 190 miles from the capital Bamako. With the Malian army securing the northern region near the Mauritanian border, Islamist fighters were encircled in the nearby town of Diabaly.

French army chief Edouard Guillaud said his ground forces were starting their campaign against the alliance of Islamist fighters, grouping al-Qaida's North African wing AQIM with Mali's home grown Ansar Dine and MUJWA militant movements.

"In the coming hours — but I cannot tell you if it's in one hour or 72 hours — yes, of course we will be fighting them directly," he told Europe 1 radio.

In Niono, a resident reported seeing French and Malian troops in armored vehicles heading toward Islamist rebel lines. Fighting was reported in Diabaly but it was not immediately clear if French ground forces were involved.

Human shields
Guillaud said French military strikes were being hampered because militants were using the civilian population as a shield.

"We categorically refuse to make the civilian population take a risk. If in doubt, we will not shoot," he said. Residents who fled Diabaly confirmed the Islamists had used the towns inhabitants to protect themselves in recent days.

French fighter jets, meanwhile, struck the headquarters of the Islamic police in Niafunke, a small town on the Niger river near the ancient caravan route of Timbuktu, residents said.

Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian acknowledged that France faced a difficult operation, particularly in Western Mali where AQIM's mostly foreign fighters have camps.

"It's tough. We were aware from the beginning it would be a very difficult operation," Le Drian said.

French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday French forces would remain in Mali until stability returned to the West African nation. Hollande said France hoped, however, to hand over to African forces in its former colony, "in the coming days or weeks."

The conflict in Mali raised concerns across mostly Muslim West Africa of a radicalization of Islam in the region. In Senegal, a traditionally moderate Islamic country, President Macky Sall warned citizens to be vigilant for attacks.

"We must be on the watch in our towns and villages because infiltrations are taking place," he said in a speech on Tuesday. "You will hear foreign preachers talking in the name of Islam. You must denounce them to authorities."

The fighting in Mali, a landlocked state at the heart of West Africa, has displaced an estimated 30,000 people. Hundreds have fled across the border into neighboring Mauritania and Niger in recent days.

"We were all afraid. Many young fighters have enrolled with them recently," said Mahamadou Abdoulaye, 35, a truck driver who fled from the northern Gao region of Mali into Niger. "They are newly arrived, they cannot manage their weapons properly. There's fear on everybody's face."

Additional reporting by Tiemoko Diallo and Adama Diarra in Bamako, Lamine Chikhi in Algiers, Alexandra Hudson in Berlin; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by David Lewis and Giles Elgood

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ANALYSIS: Why France is taking on Mali extremists
Al-Qaida-linked fighters destroy 'end of the world' gate in Timbuktu

News analysis

Updated at 7:24 a.m. ET: Often the butt of jokes about its modern military prowess and once characterized as a nation of "surrender monkeys," France's decision to put boots on the ground in Mali to battle Islamist insurgents will surprise some.

In what threatens to be a lengthy and dangerous campaign, Friday's sudden military action marked an urgent escalation in the regional conflict.

Faced with the prospect of Mali falling into the hands of jihadists — including some who boast links to al-Qaida — French Mirage and Rafale jets spent the weekend bombarding rebel strongholds while 550 of the country's troops battled militants.

France was warned Monday it had "opened the gates of hell" by intervening in Mali. Paris had "fallen into a trap which is much more dangerous than Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia," a spokesman for the MUJWA group of rebels told Europe 1 radio.

But some analysts suggested French President Francois Hollande, a Socialist who has been dubbed "Monsieur Caramel Pudding," had little choice but to act.

"It is difficult to see what other option France had," Paul Melly, associate fellow of the Africa program at Britain’s Chatham House think tank, told NBC News on Monday.

Having the former French colony under the control of rebels could have created a haven for al-Qaida militants, Melly said, in area much closer to Western Europe than Afghanistan or the Middle East.

Since a military coup in March last year, extremist groups including al-Qaida in the Magreb (AQIM), MUJWA and Algeria’s Ansar Dine have flourished and imposed Shariah law in some parts of the country.

France says its intervention was a response to an urgent appeal from Mali's president. That was prompted by an advance by a heavily armed rebel convoy. 

Mali’s military has proved weak in tackling the rebel uprising. Units that had been trained by United States special forces almost immediately defected to the rebel side — a collapse that "astounded and embarrassed to American military commanders," according to The New York Times.

The newspaper reported that the United States has spent between $520 and $600 million in the past four years in an effort to prevent West Africa replacing Afghanistan and the Middle East as a new theater of conflict with Islamist terrorists.

France on Monday insisted it was satisfied with the progress of the campaign — named Operation Serval after a wild cat — and rejected any parallel with the protracted U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan.

Military engagement would last "a matter of weeks," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in Paris, saying: "Later on, we can come as back-up, but we have no intention of staying forever."

France has not asked NATO for assistance, but two British C17 cargo planes are providing support.  Troops from neighboring states of Niger, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Togo, are now expected within days.

The Obama administration is set to announce military support for French forces in Mali, U.S. officials told NBC News. This is likely to include intelligence and overhead surveillance involving unmanned drones. Officials added that it was possible that a small number of U.S. advisers could be tasked to work directly with French forces on the ground, but not in a combat role.

Reuters

Mali graphic

"We stand by our French allies and they can count on U.S. support," Air Force Maj. Robert Firman, in the office of the defense secretary, told The Associated Press.

Rebels seized the central town of Diabaly on Monday, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Reuters, adding that French and Malian forces were also battling heavily-armed rebel groups in the west of the country, which he admitted was "a difficult spot."

French fighter jets identified and destroyed this numerous rebel training camps that served as bases for terrorist groups, the French defense ministry said Sunday.

Dozens of Islamist fighters were also killed when rockets struck a fuel depot and a customs house being used as their headquarters, Agence France Press (AFP) reported.

Reuters highlighted that Mali has traditionally been relatively stable until a Tuareg rebel was "hijacked by Islamists":

Two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bastion of democracy in turbulent West Africa but that image unraveled after a military coup in March left a power vacuum for MNLA Tuareg rebels to seize the desert north. 

The MUJWA, an AQIM splinter group drawing on support from Arabs and other ethnic groups, wrested control of Gao - the main city of the north - from the Tuaregs in June, shocking Mali's liberal Muslim majority with amputation of hands for theft under Sharia law. 

'Death trap'
Heavily armed thanks to their involvement in neighboring Libya, the Islamists are likely to deploy all possible tactics against French forces on the ground.

"They have been preparing these towns to be a death trap," Rudolph Atallah, the former director of African counterterrorism policy for the Pentagon, told the New York Times. "If an intervention force goes in there, the militants will turn it into an insurgency war."

Not all experts agree with comparisons to Afghanistan. "It isn't helpful to see it in those terms," Melly told NBC News.

In contrast to the tribal society of Afghanistan, often dismissed as ungovernable by despairing Western military commanders, Mali "has had a structured, functioning government for the past 150 years," he said.

"The West African form of Islam is not in tune with the hardline, Shariah law that the jihadists have been trying to impose, so there isn't popular support for it. Education is valued, for example, and women play a role in public life."

However, finding a political solution will be a long task will not be easy.

"The underlying problems that led to the rebellion in the first place still remain," Melly added.

There is also a growing humanitarian crisis. "Thousands of people are fleeing across the border into Mauritania and into camps where there is not enough provision for them,” Alessandra Giuffrida, an associate of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, told Al Jazeera.

The term “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” was first applied to the French on "The Simpsons" and was popularized by National Review journalist Jonah Goldberg, who claimed he had made it “an accepted term in official diplomatic channels around the globe.”

In 2003, a so-called "Google bomb" sent people searching for "French military victories"and using the "I'm feeling lucky" command to a page that asked, "Did you mean French military defeats?"

NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube and Reuters contributed to this report.

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