DOUENTZA, Mali/PARIS French troops seized the airport in Mali's northern town of Kidal, the last urban stronghold held by Islamist insurgents, as they moved to wrap up the first phase of a military operation to wrest northern Mali from rebel hands. 
 
 France has deployed some 4,500 troops in a three-week ground and air offensive to break the Islamist rebels' 10-month grip on major northern towns. The mission is aimed at heading off the risk of Mali being used as a springboard for jihadist attacks in the wider region or Europe. 
 
 The French military plans to gradually hand over to a larger African force, tasked with rooting out insurgents in their mountain redoubts near Algeria's border. 
 
 Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said French forces using planes and helicopters defied a sandstorm late on Tuesday to capture the airport but had been prevented by the bad weather from entering the town itself. 
 
 "The terrorist forces are pulling back to the Adrar des Ifoghas mountains which are difficult to access," Le Drian told a news conference. "There is support from Chadian and Nigerian troops coming from the south." 
 
 The deployment of French troops to remote Kidal puts them in direct contact with pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels, whose rebellion last year was hijacked by the Islamist radicals. Le Drian said France had established good relations with local Tuareg chieftains before sending in troops. 
 
 MNLA leaders say they are ready to fight al Qaeda but many Malians, including the powerful military top brass in the capital Bamako, blame them for the division of the country. They view Paris' liaisons with the Tuaregs with suspicion. 
 
 French and Malian troops retook the major Saharan trading towns of Gao and Timbuktu at the weekend. 
 
 There were fears that many thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts held in Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, might have been lost during the rebel occupation, but experts said the bulk of the texts were safe. 
 
 The United States and European governments strongly support the Mali intervention and are providing logistical and surveillance backing but do not intend to send combat troops. 
 
 The MNLA rebels, who want greater autonomy for the desert north, said they had moved fighters into Kidal after Islamists left the town earlier this week. 
 
 "For the moment, there is a coordination with the French troops," said Moussa Ag Assarid, the MNLA spokesman in Paris. 
 
 A spokesman for the Malian army said its soldiers were securing Gao and Timbuktu and were not heading to Kidal. 
 
 The MNLA took up arms against the Bamako government a year ago, seeking to carve out a new independent desert state. 
 
 After initially fighting alongside the Islamists, by June they had been forced out by their better armed and financed former allies, who include al Qaeda North Africa's wing, AQIM, a splinter wing called MUJWA and Ansar Dine, a Malian group. 
 
 RISK OF ATTACKS, KIDNAPPINGS 
 
 As the French wind up the first phase of their offensive, doubts remain about just how quickly the U.N.-backed African intervention force can be fully deployed in Mali to hunt down the retreating al Qaeda-allied insurgents. Known as AFISMA, the force is now expected to exceed 8,000 troops. 
 
 Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said France's military operation, codenamed Serval (Wildcat), was planned as a lightning mission lasting a few weeks. 
 
 "Liberating Gao and Timbuktu very quickly was part of the plan. Now it's up to the African countries to take over," he told the Le Parisien daily. "We decided to put in the means and the necessary number of soldiers to strike hard. But the French contingent will not stay like this. We will leave very quickly." 
 
 One French soldier has been killed in the mission, and Fabius warned that things could now get more difficult, as the offensive seeks to flush out insurgents with experience of fighting in the desert from their wilderness hideouts. 
 
 "We have to be careful. We are entering a complicated phase where the risks of attacks or kidnappings are extremely high. French interests are threatened throughout the entire Sahel." 
 
 An attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria earlier this month by Islamist fighters opposing the French intervention in Mali led to the deaths of dozens of foreign hostages and raised fears of similar reprisal strikes across North and West Africa. 
 
 NEED FOR RECONCILIATION 
 
 The French operation has destroyed the Islamists' training camps and logistics bases but analysts say a long term solution for Mali hinges on finding a political settlement between the northern communities and the southern capital Bamako. 
 
 Interim President Dioncounda Traore said on Tuesday his government would aim to hold national elections on July 31. Paris is pushing strongly for Traore's government to hold talks with the MNLA, which has dropped its claims for independence. 
 
 "The Malian authorities must begin without delay talks with the legitimate representatives of the northern population and non-terrorist armed groups that recognize Mali's integrity," French Foreign ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said. 
 
 After months of being kept on the political sidelines, the MNLA said they were in contact with West African mediators who are trying to forge a national settlement to reunite Mali. 
 
 "We reiterate that we are ready to talk with Bamako and to find a political solution. We want self-determination, but all that will be up to negotiations which will determine at what level both parties can go," Ag Assarid said. 
 
 There have been cases in Gao and Timbuktu and other recaptured towns of reprisal attacks and looting of shops and residences belonging to Malian Tuaregs and Arabs suspected of sympathizing with the MNLA and the Islamist rebels. 
 
 (Additional reporting John Irish and Emmanuel Jarry in Paris, David Lewis and Pascal Fletcher in Dakar; Writing by David Lewis and Daniel Flynn; Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Rosalind Russell) ||||| Image caption Residents have been surveying the damage left behind by militants 
 
 A group of jihadis came knocking at the gate late on Wednesday night last week. But the Ahmed Baba centre in the Malian city of Timbuktu is not the kind of library that would accept visitors after dark. 
 
 The Islamist militants tricked the guard and said they were coming to secure the place. But once inside, they ransacked the centre's reading room. 
 
 When historian Abdoulaye Cisse arrived early in the morning, the pile of ashes was still warm. 
 
 "They probably spent most of the night in there," he said. 
 
 Dozens of empty handcrafted boxes still litter the floor of the hallway. Ashes haven't been removed yet either. 
 
 A few people come in and out surveying the irreparable damage and lament the remains of a cultural trove kept in Timbuktu for centuries. 
 
 It's a huge wealth that will be impossible to replace Abdoulaye Cisse, Historian Treasure trove of African history 
 
 At least 2,000 manuscripts were stored in this centre that was opened in 2009, funded by the South African government. 
 
 The project was meant to catalogue and preserve the city's historical documents, many of which continue to be held by families or smaller libraries. 
 
 Another 28,000 were due to be transferred to the Ahmed Baba premises but were instead sent to the capital after al-Qaeda militants arrived in the city last year. 
 
 Each box is tagged with a reference number and if the search is properly done, these tags should reveal the full extent of the damage. 
 
 It could also reveal how many were simply stolen. 
 
 "These fighters know too well how much these papers are valued, it's a huge wealth that will be impossible to replace," Mr Cisse told the BBC. 
 
 Image caption The Institute's manuscripts date back to the 13th century (file image) 
 
 "When I surveyed the reading room, I found about 30 left so I brought them home to secure them," he said. 
 
 The offending texts ranged from history to geography and astronomy, medicine and Islamic law; writings dating back in some cases as far as the 13th Century. 
 
 In the reading room, shelves were emptied and the desk equipped with a magnifying glass vandalised. 
 
 Named after a saint of the ancient city who wrote many manuscripts himself, the Ahmed Baba centre stands out for its modernity but was designed to echo the famous Timbuktu style of dry-mud walls. 
 
 The Islamist militants prepared to flee last week knowing that an assault by the French-led forces on their positions here was imminent. 
 
 But in their haste, they took the time to commit one last act of vengeance. 
 
 They had sparked worldwide condemnation last year when they destroyed sacred tombs and shrines designated as Unesco World Heritage sites on the pretext that they violated principles of Islamic law. 
 
 Treasures of Timbuktu Timbuktu was a centre of Islamic learning from the 13th to the 17th Centuries 
 
 700,000 manuscripts had survived in public libraries and private collections 
 
 Books on religion, law, literature and science 
 
 Added to Unesco world heritage list in 1988 for its three mosques and 16 cemeteries and mausoleums 
 
 They played a major role in spreading Islam in West Africa; the oldest dates from 1329 
 
 Islamists destroyed mausoleums after seizing the city Why do we know Timbuktu? In pictures: Timbuktu manuscripts 
 
 Elhadj Djitteye, who used to guide visitors in town, reckons that the fighters linked to al-Qaeda carried out the attack on the library in response to the French military intervention ordered earlier in January by President Francois Hollande. 
 
 Noting that the jihadis hadn't touched the manuscripts in 10 months of occupation, Mr Djitteye sadly comments that they "hit Timbuktu straight at its heart". 
 
 The militants' destructive parting gesture left many residents feeling that another part of their celebrated city's history had just been erased. 
 
 The people of Timbuktu have been anxious to return to some kind of normal life since the French and Malian troops entered they city and were hailed as "liberators". 
 
 Reminders of the extremists, like the black banners proclaiming sharia at the city gates, are being removed. 
 
 But in just under a year, the Islamist militants have inflicted lasting damage on Mali's most renowned cultural centre. The scars left by Timbuktu's occupation are likely to take much longer to heal. ||||| Joyous villagers in Ansongo, south of Gao, celebrate their liberation by French and Malian troops after 10 months of occupation by Islamic militants. France hopes to hand over the mission to an African-led contingent soon, but analysts say the West will have to provide logistical and intelligence support for years if the militants are to be denied a foothold in North Africa. (Kambou Sia / AFP/Getty Images / ) 
 
 French troops backing a Mali government campaign to retake the northern half of the country from Islamic militants have been cheered as liberators since their convoys rolled into historic Timbuktu this week and hundreds of paratroopers dropped from the sky to block the occupiers' escape. 
 
 As villagers celebrated with dance, song and cigarettes -- all banned by the fundamentalist invaders over the last 10 months -- French President Francois Hollande proclaimed his troops’ intervention a success and hinted that the task of sweeping out the last of the Al Qaeda-aligned militants would soon be handed over to African forces. 
 
 The international community is now scrambling to bolster the French-Malian battle to deny the militants a foothold in North Africa from which they could plot and carry out terrorist attacks: Western nations on Tuesday pledged more than $450 million in financing for a planned African-led contingent. Japan agreed to pitch in $120 million for refugee relief. Germany has promised more help transporting French troops to the battlefields, and Britain announced that it would send 240 troops to train and assist the regional fighters, including Mali’s beleaguered army. 
 
 But lessons learned in the Western intervention in Libya less than two years ago caution against a premature retreat by the French and their arm's-length U.S. and European allies, warn experts on the restive sub-Saharan Sahel region, which spans the breadth of the continent. 
 
 While the United Nations has endorsed the plans to deploy 3,300 troops from the Economic Community of West African States, or ECOWAS, those fighters lack training and familiarity with the challenging desert conditions that the veteran militants of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb navigate with confidence. 
 
 As the former colonial power in Mali and much of North Africa, France runs the risk of stirring resentment if it stays too long or appears to be reasserting its authority in the region. On the other hand, the experts say, Paris and its allies shouldn’t leave the newly liberated towns vulnerable to recurring waves of invasion and takeover by militants who are only scattered, not defeated. 
 
 “They are going to have to leave some kind of residual advisory effort after the bulk of their combat forces are withdrawn,” said Frederic Wehrey, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. While it would be prudent for France to power down once Malian government control has been restored, he said, trainers and logistical coordinators will be needed to guard against any return of regrouped fighters. 
 
 Wehrey said the militants cannot be defeated country-by-country. The region’s porous borders give them free range throughout the Sahel's archipelago of unstable states, and aggrieved minority tribes provide willing collaborators in their mission of mayhem. 
 
 Long-marginalized Tuareg nomads, flush with weapons from Libya, took advantage of a military coup against the government in Bamako last March to seize control of the desolate northern half of Mali. They were then elbowed aside by other, more militant Islamist forces that filtered into Mali after the collapse of Libyan strongman Moammar Kadafi and setbacks in fighting against forces in Algeria, Nigeria and Somalia. 
 
 As the militants retreat to the remote desert reaches or escape over unguarded borders, the West has to plan for a “cat and mouse" game of tracking the would-be terrorists and disrupting their operations, said David Ottaway, a veteran Middle East correspondent and now a senior scholar at the Wilson Center international think tank in Washington. 
 
 The ECOWAS forces “are not ready to take on Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The French are going to have to stay involved, and we’re going to have to get involved in providing intelligence,” Ottaway said of the United States. 
 
 Unmanned surveillance aircraft that can track the militants’ movements are going to be essential to denying them a North Africa stronghold, Ottaway said. He pointed out reports from Washington-based intelligence sources this week that a base in Niger, Mali’s eastern neighbor, is on the drawing board to host Predator drones that can follow the flow of troops and weapons throughout the region. 
 
 Libya remains a dangerous redoubt of Islamic extremism even 15 months after Kadafi’s demise, mostly because of the failure of Western policymakers to anticipate what would happen after his regime fell, said Russell D. Howard, director of the Monterey Institute Terrorism Research and Education Program and a retired special forces brigadier general. Radical militias that protected the Kadafi regime simply slipped across the unpatrolled southern border, carrying off their replete arsenals to continue the fight elsewhere. 
 
 France must maintain a symbolic presence in Mali, but more important than the size is its capability to provide air support, training, logistics, intelligence and especially to track the elusive militants as they move about at night, Howard said. 
 
 “Being able to pursue, find and fix at night will be a game-changer,” Howard said of the prospects for defeating the militants in Mali and thwarting their relocation. 
 
 But there will be no lasting peace or stability in the region, the general said, as long as the social needs of minority communities are ignored and festering resentments draw them to the opportunistic Islamic extremists. 
 
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 A foreign correspondent for 25 years, Carol J. Williams traveled to and reported from more than 80 countries in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. ||||| View Images A worker looks after Islamic manuscripts in Timbuktu's Ahmed Baba Institute in 2004. 
 
 Photograph by Ben Curtis, AP 
 
 French and Malian troops surrounded Timbuktu on Monday and began combing the labyrinthine city for Islamist fighters. Witnesses, however, said the Islamists, who claim an affiliation to al Qaeda and had imposed a Taliban-style rule in the northern Malian city over the last ten months, slipped into the desert a few days earlier. 
 
 But before fleeing, the militants reportedly set fire to several buildings and many rare manuscripts. Timbuktu Mayor Halle Ousmane Cisse, speaking from the Malian capital of Bamako, told journalists that the fighters had "torched all the important documents." However, there are conflicting reports as to how many manuscripts were actually destroyed. (Video: Roots of the Mali Crisis.) 
 
 On Monday, Sky News posted an interview with a man identifying himself as an employee of the Ahmed Baba Institute, a government-run repository for rare books and manuscripts, the oldest of which date back to the city's founding in the 12th century. The man said some 3,000 of the institute's 20,000 manuscripts had been destroyed or looted by the Islamists. 
 
 Video showed what appeared to be a large pile of charred manuscripts and the special boxes made to preserve them in front of one of the institute's buildings. 
 
 However, a member of the University of Cape Town Timbuktu Manuscript Project told eNews Channel Africa on Tuesday that he had spoken with the director of the Ahmed Baba Institute, Mahmoud Zouber, who said that nearly all of its manuscripts had been removed from the buildings and taken to secure locations months earlier. 
 
 A Written Legacy 
 
 The written word is deeply rooted in Timbuktu's rich history. The city emerged as a wealthy center of trade, Islam, and learning during the 13th century, attracting a number of Sufi religious scholars. They in turn took on students, forming schools affiliated with's Timbuktu's three main mosques. 
 
 The scholars imported parchment and vellum manuscripts via the caravan system that connected northern Africa with the Mediterranean and Arabia. Wealthy families had the documents copied and illuminated by local scribes, building extensive libraries containing works of religion, art, mathematics, medicine, astronomy, history, geography, and culture. 
 
 "The manuscripts are the city's real gold," said Mohammed Aghali, a tour guide from Timbuktu. "The manuscripts, our mosques, and our history—these are our treasures. Without them, what is Timbuktu?" 
 
 This isn't the first time that an occupying army has threatened Timbuktu's cultural heritage. The Moroccan army invaded the city in 1591 to take control of the gold trade. In the process of securing the city, they killed or deported most of Timbuktu's scholars, including the city's most famous teacher, Ahmed Baba al Massufi, who was held in exile in Marrakesh for many years and forced to teach in a pasha's court. He finally returned to Timbuktu in 1611, and it is for him that the Ahmed Baba Institute was named. 
 
 Hiding the Texts 
 
 In addition to the Ahmed Baba Institute, Timbuktu is home to more than 60 private libraries, some with collections containing several thousand manuscripts and others with only a precious handful. (Read about the fall of Timbuktu.) 
 
 Sidi Ahmed, a reporter based in Timbuktu who recently fled to Bamako, said Monday that nearly all the libraries, including the world-renowned Mamma Haidara and the Fondo Kati libraries, had secreted their collections before the Islamist forces had taken the city. 
 
 "The people here have long memories," he said. "They are used to hiding their manuscripts. They go into the desert and bury them until it is safe." 
 
 Though it appears most of the manuscripts are safe, the Islamists' occupation took a heavy toll on Timbuktu. 
 
 Women were flogged for not covering their hair or wearing bright colors. Girls were forbidden from attending school, and boys were recruited into the fighters' ranks. 
 
 Music was banned. Local imams who dared speak out against the occupiers were barred from preaching in their mosques. In a move reminiscent of the Taliban's destruction of Afghanistan's famous Bamiyan Buddha sculptures, Islamist fighters bulldozed 14 ancient mud-brick mausoleums and cemeteries that held the remains of revered Sufi saints.
– France is wrapping up the first phase of its Mali mission: Its forces took back the last big urban center once held by Islamic militants, reports Reuters. The success in Kidal follows similar operations in Gao and Timbuktu over the last three weeks, and now France is getting ready to turn over operations to an African force. Those troops will be charged with rooting out militants in the desert in the hope of preventing a counterattack. "Now it's up to the African countries," says the French foreign minister. "We will leave quickly." Things might be going well, but the idea that militants bent on taking over the government can be flushed out so easily is "highly unrealistic," writes William Lloyd George at the Daily Beast. The Los Angeles Times rounds up similar skepticism, based on the precedent in Libya. In Timbuktu, meanwhile, the latest reports suggest that the city's priceless trove of ancient manuscripts has survived mostly intact. Earlier reports, including this one from the BBC, raised fears that militants had done some serious looting before fleeing the city. National Geographic quotes a tour guide on the significance: "The manuscripts are the city's real gold. The manuscripts, our mosques, and our history—these are our treasures. Without them, what is Timbuktu?"