Everything points to either France on it's own or with NATO will entrench themselves in Mali

That's a given. When things are not nipped in the bud, they bloom and BOOM.  
Canada has  committed to "one more month" of transportation support.   HAH !!   Gotta laugh at how nutty the government honchos are ... they would rather go miles across to the other side of the world to either kill or  capture  a  few dozen  allahu akbars  while at the same time importing a thousand times that number into our countries on a monthly  basis.  What can be more hilarious, eh?!

From TheEconomist:
While the ancient city of Timbuktu   was under the rule of jihadists, a 21-year-old woman with almond-shaped eyes called Mamou Maiga accepted a ride home from a handsome occupier calling himself Adama. “He said I was very special,” she murmurs. They were married after he offered her reluctant family a large dowry. But three weeks ago, as French troops could be spied from the city’s mud-brick minarets, Adama fled. His bride is distraught, her family relieved. Mamou’s younger sister says she hates the jihadists, who for ten months imposed harsh rules, and hopes her fly-by-night brother-in-law will never come back. “Why would you even answer the phone to him?” she asks.

Mamou is unlikely to see Adama again soon, given how decisively French troops chased the Islamists out of the populated parts of northern Mali. Some were struck down from the air as they crossed open desert; the French reckon they have killed several hundred out of an estimated total of 3,000. The rest are hiding in remote mountains near the Algerian border.

France and its Western and African allies are planning the second phase of the month-old intervention. This will try to allay fears that the jihadists, who may still have support in some outlying villages in the north, could trickle back and start a guerrilla war. A standard counter-insurgency strategy would suggest that the French-led forces must protect civilians from attacks, ensure that the new authorities are seen as legitimate, then stick around until the fight is truly won. In essence, keep the peace and rebuild the state.

To achieve this the European Union intends to train Malian troops, while 8,000 soldiers from neighbouring countries, of whom more than half have so far arrived, hold the ring. The French hope that by April an African force will have come under the UN’s aegis. Foreign governments will provide cash for development...........