U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said there is strong international support for that deployment.
"These are some of the most remote places on the planet, very hard to get to, difficult to have much intelligence from. So there is going to be lot of work that has to go into our efforts," said Clinton.
Nigeria takes lead
Nigerian troops already are arriving in Mali. Nigeria's leadership of the West African force comes as the government in Abuja faces its own violence by Islamist militants from a group known as Boko Haram.
Charles Dokubo of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs said that confronting extremists in Mali is part of Nigeria's efforts to stop the expansion of a broader terrorist network.
"If this threat is not fully contained from there, then eventually they'll have to pay a bigger price for dealing with intervention in the country if it spreads to Nigeria and you have a mixture of what we have in Nigeria, and the one that's coming from outside," said Dokubo.
But with Nigerian troops criticized by human rights groups for attacking civilians while fighting against Boko Haram, analyst Cooke said al-Qaida in Mali has an opening to incite Nigerians against their own military.
"Deploying against al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and the associated groups up there opens them up to vulnerabilities at home, as it does for all the other ECOWAS troops getting involved," said Cooke.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25