I imagine these easy targets are a thing of the past by now:
French warplanes found and bombed some of those convoys (of cars, pickups and trucks) that brought the Islamic radicals from cities like Gao, Kidal and and Timbuktu to mountain refuges near the Algerian border. This journey took up to ten hours, with the vehicles visible from the air on desert roads. Hundreds of terrorists were believed killed on those few roads by French warplanes. The French commandos are seeking to find out what shape the survivors are in and how many of them are up in the hills.
Jihadis are fanatics and not idiots. They'll learn not to roam around in SUV caravans.
Will the French pull out most of their troops soon? Can ECOWAS troops--with French special forces to call in the bombers--handle the job of keeping the pressure on the jihadis out in the hills? Can the Mali army focus on the jihadis? Can the government afford to alienate portions of the army and reach a settlement with enough Tuaregs to keep them in the anti-jihadi coalition?
Remember, our interest in Mali is in killing jihadis and keeping them from having a sanctuary to cause mayhem beyond their sanctuary. In other circumstances, we could have championed the cause of the Tuaregs without losing any sleep about backing the wrong side. So Mali should not expect us to back them to the hilt in that struggle. Thank goodness we have "smart" diplomacy to sort this out.
