French President Emmanuel Macron threatened, ahead of an emergency summit meeting with West African presidents in January, to pull his troops out. Later, he doubled down on the mission, promising to deploy additional 600 soldiers to join the 4,500 already there. He also committed to work more closely with the militaries of African countries to get them better prepared to stave off attacks, and take some of the load off French shoulders.

But the task is enormous. The allies are divided by language, culture and experience.

At a French military camp outside the ancient Malian city of Gao, 15 Malian soldiers were being instructed by French airmen in how to give accurate directions to planes over the radio. The Malians’ mission was to guide a pretend fighter pilot to a pretend terrorist den — a rust-colored house, just like all the others in the city.

West African security forces have little of the equipment, training or even basic education that their French counterparts do. Most of the Malian soldiers said they had never seen a compass before, and they kept getting their directions wrong. They tested each other on the powdery sand, an empty cigarette packet marking north, a plastic cup for south.

The militants are far from defeated, with one group even managing to kidnap the politician who leads Mali’s main opposition party last week near Timbuktu.

The African Union recently said it would send 3,000 soldiers to the Sahel, and France has been trying to recruit new allies; Estonia and the Czech Republic have already signed up to send troops, while talks are continuing with Sweden, Finland and Norway.