Mali crisis: UN calls for 'swift deployment' of troops Published duration 11 January 2013

image caption Islamist militants have controlled much of northern Mali since April

The UN Security Council has called for the "swift deployment" of an international force to Mali.

The call comes after Islamist militants said they had entered the key central town of Konna.

The UN has approved plans to send some 3,000 African troops to Mali to recapture the desert north, which is controlled by the militants.

On Friday, French President Francois Hollande said France would only help Mali within a UN framework.

He was speaking after UN diplomats revealed that Malian President Dioncounda Traore had asked France - the country's former colonial power - to help counter the rebel offensive.

"We are faced with a blatant aggression that is threatening Mali's very existence," Mr Hollande said in a new year speech to diplomats.

"I have decided that France will respond, alongside our African partners, to the request from the Malian authorities. We will do it strictly within the framework of the United Nations Security Council resolution. We will be ready to stop the terrorists' offensive if it continues."

Earlier, the US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, asked whether the President Traore had requested specific kinds of military support, said: "It wasn't specific, but it basically said, 'Help, France!'"

For logistical reasons the African force already approved by the UN was not expected to even begin its offensive before September or October, the BBC's Barbara Plett reports from the UN in New York.

The UN resolution also calls for peace talks between the government and rebels, in an attempt to separate them from the foreign extremists, our correspondent reports.

These were set to begin this month but the renewed fighting threatens their chances of success, she adds.

Some European leaders have voiced concerns that jihadists could use Mali's vast Islamist-controlled area to launch attacks on Europe.

'Global crisis'

The latest fighting is the most serious since the militants captured the north from government forces in April 2012.

A spokesman for the Ansar Dine militant group, Sanda Abu Mohammed, said their fighters had driven out government forces from Konna, about 700km (435 miles) north-east of Bamako.

"We are actually in Konna for the jihad [holy war]," he is quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

The army has not commented on the claim.

Earlier, army sources had said that soldiers had advanced on Douentza, a central town held by another Islamist group.

A resident in Douentza said no fighting had so far taken place for control of the town, about 800km (500 miles) north-east of the capital, Bamako.

It was still in the hands of the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (Mujao), the resident said.

On Tuesday, African Union chairman Thomas Boni Yayi said Nato should send forces to Mali to fight the Islamists.

He said the Malian conflict was a global crisis which required Nato to intervene, in the way it had done in Afghanistan to fight the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

Nato troops should work alongside an African force in Mali, he said.

Ansar Dine and Mujao have controlled most of northern Mali since last April.

They formed an alliance with Tuareg rebels, over-running government forces in the northern regions of Timbuktu, Kidal and Gao in the chaos following a military coup in March.

But their alliance quickly collapsed, with the Islamists capturing the region's main urban centres and marginalising the Tuareg rebels.

The Islamists have been accused of war crimes and attempting to impose a strict version of Sharia, prompting fears the region could become a regional hub for al-Qaeda-linked militancy.