Malian chief of Gao's gendarmerie district, Colonel Salhiou Maiga poses in the office of the Gao's gendarmerie in Gao, on February 24, 2013. After recapturing the north's cities from the Al Qaeda groups that had controlled them since April 2012, the six-week-long French-led offensive took the fight to the retreating Islamist insurgents' toughest desert bastions. (Photo by Joel Saget/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

A convoy of French army vehicles head toward Gao, on the road from Gossi, Mali, on February 7, 2013. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

Malian soldiers fight while clashes erupted in the city of Gao on February 21, 2013 and an apparent car bomb struck near a camp housing French troops as Malian and foreign forces struggled to secure Mali's volatile north against Islamist rebels. (Photo by Frederic Lafargue/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

Tuareg Malian soldiers under the command of Colonel El-Hadj Ag Gamou patrol the streets of Gao, northern Mali, on February 16 2013. After 10 months of forced exile to Niger, Gamou returned to help French and African forces flush jihadists from the region. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

French paratroopers drop from a plane over Timbuktu airport in Mali, on January 29, 2013. (Photo by Olivier Debes/AP Photo/ECPAD via The Atlantic)

A French Mirage F1CR (top) and a Rafale jetfighter fly over Mali, on February 4, 2013. (Photo by Anthony Jeuland/AP Photo/ECPAD/French Air Force via The Atlantic)

French army deminers secure a helicopter in a hangar at the Gao airport, on February 9, 2013. Two Malian soldiers and four civilians have already been killed by landmines, and French troops are still fighting off what Paris called “residual jihadists” in reclaimed territory. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

A Malian soldier is pictured near the market in Gao, on February 22, 2013. Five people, including two suicide bombers, died Friday in car bombings in northern Mali, a day after fierce urban battles between French-led forces and Islamists left up to 20 extremists dead, officials said. (Photo by Joel Saget/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

Malians carry the mangled corpse of a suicide bomber who blew himself up near a group of Malian soldiers in the northern city of Gao, where Islamist rebels driven from the town have resorted to guerrilla attacks, on on February 8, 2013. The act marked the first suicide attack in the embattled west African nation since the start of a French-led offensive to oust the Islamists from Mali's north. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

Soldiers stand in front of a rocket pod launcher and weapons seized from Islamist fighters, exhibited by the Malian army in the center of Gao, on February 24, 2013. (Photo by Joel Saget/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

A French army sniper stands next to an armored vehicle outside Bourem, Mali, on February 17, 2013. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Malians wave to a French military helicopter near Bourem, Mali, on February 17, 2013. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

A French soldier checks passengers of a transport truck arriving in Gao, on February 14, 2013. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Malian army soldier Sekou Bolly, 30, holds an AK-47 assault rifle as he patrols in Gao, on February 25, 2013. (Photo by Joel Saget/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

Travelers driving from Niamey, Niger, line up to be searched at the entrance of Gao, on February 12, 2013. Soldiers from Niger and Mali patrolled downtown Gao on foot, combing the sand footpaths through empty market stalls to prevent radical Islamic fighters from returning to this embattled city. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

Malian soldiers fire a large weapon in Gao, on February 21, 2013. French and Malian troops fought Islamists on the streets of Gao, as fighting showed little sign of abating weeks before France plans to start withdrawing some forces. (Photo by Joe Penney/Reuters via The Atlantic)

A Malian soldier runs in an empty gutter during fighting with Islamists in Gao, on February 21, 2013. (Photo by Joe Penney/Reuters via The Atlantic)

French soldiers take up positions near Independence Plaza, formerly Sharia Square, during fighting with Islamists in Gao, on February 21, 2013. (Photo by Joe Penney/Reuters via The Atlantic)

A Malian soldier takes cover amid a cloud of leaves and dust, after a rocket propelled grenade was fired by his comrades in Gao, on February 21, 2013. (Photo by Joe Penney/Reuters via The Atlantic)

Malian teenagers watch a convoy of French military vehicles pass through Gao, on February 19, 2013. (Photo by Jerome Delay/AP Photo via The Atlantic)

The body of an Islamist fighter, on a staircase in central Gao, following a gun battle on February 22, 2013. (Photo by Joel Saget/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

A man collects spent cartridge cases at a damaged police station one day after Islamist gunmen battled French and Malian troops, on February 11, 2013 in Gao. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

A Malian soldier arrests a man at a checkpoint one day after Islamist gunmen battled French and Malian troops, on February 11, 2013 in Gao. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

Ani Boka Arby weeps as the body of her husband, Mohamed Lamine, was unearthed in Timbuktu, Mali, on Friday February 8, 2013. Lamine, an Arab, was last seen being led away at gunpoint by Malian soldiers on January 28. Children found his body and that of another Arab man days later, lying facedown in the side of a dune on the outskirts of this desert capital. Human rights groups have warned that the military intervention to take back the territory in Mali's north could open the door to reprisals killings. Especially vulnerable are ethnic minorities suspected of having supported the extremists, including the country's Arabs. (Photo by Rukmini Callimachi/AP Photo via The Atlantic)