Malian government troops drove back Islamist rebels from a strategic central town after France intervened on Friday with air strikes to halt advances by the militants controlling the country's desert north. Western governments, particularly former colonial power France, had voiced alarm after the al Qaeda-linked rebel alliance captured the town of Konna on Thursday, a gateway towards the capital, Bamako, 600 km (375 miles) south. President Francois Hollande said France would not stand by to watch the rebels push southward. Paris has repeatedly warned that the Islamists' seizure of the country's north in April gave them a base to attack neighbouring African countries and Europe. "We are faced with blatant aggression that is threatening Mali's very existence. France cannot accept this," Hollande, who recently pledged Paris would not meddle in African affairs, said in a New Year speech to diplomats and journalists. The president said resolutions by the U.N. Security Council, which in December sanctioned an African-led military intervention in Mali, meant France was acting in accordance with international law. French military operations in support of the Malian army against Islamist rebels "will last as long as necessary," France's U.N. ambassador, Gerard Araud, wrote in a letter to the Security Council, accorin to Reuters.
