TOKYO - A Boeing 787 Dreamliner headed for Tokyo made an emergency landing Wednesday morning in Takamatsu, Japan after error messages indicated there was a problem with the plane's batteries and smoke in the plane. 

An "unusual smell" was detected inside the cockpit and the passenger cabin, according to a news conference held by All Nippon Airlines, whose plane was grounded. Fire trucks were deployed after the plane landed, but there was no fire to put out.  

This adds to a slew of recent problems with Boeing's new Dreamliner aircraft. Another 787 -- the world's first mainly carbon-composite airliner -- had two fuel leaks, a battery fire, a wiring problem, brake computer glitch and cracked cockpit window last week.

The two Japanese airlines -- ANA and Japan Airlines -- said they would ground the 21 Boeing 787 jets currently being flown for further safety checks.  

Both Japan and the United States have opened broad and open-ended investigations into the plane after a series of incidents that have raised safety concerns.

ANA said instruments on the early Wednesday domestic flight indicated a battery error. All passengers and crew evacuated safely by using the plane's inflatable slides, ANA said.

ANA said it evacuated 129 passengers and eight crew members from the Dreamliner after measuring instruments in the flight's cockpit indicated there was a battery malfunction and the pilot smelled something strange. 

Flight 692 bound for Haneda Airport near Tokyo left Yamaguchi Airport in western Japan shortly after 8 a.m. but made an emergency landing in Takamatsu at 8:45 a.m. after smoke appeared in the cockpit, an Osaka airport authority spokesman said.

Reuters

An All Nippon Airways' Boeing 787 Dreamliner, photographed here by a passenger, made an emergency landing at Takamatsu airport in western Japan after there were reports of smoke in the cockpit.

Boeing spokesman Marc Birtel told Reuters: "We've seen the reports, we're aware of the events and are working with our customer."

Federal Aviation Administration officials said Friday they would conduct a comprehensive review of Boeing’s 787 airplane program following several high-profile mishaps, including a fire. But the FAA sought Friday to reassure fliers that they still believe the airplane is safe to fly.

In a statement following the emergency landing in Japan, the FAA said it is monitoring the report: "The incident will be included in the comprehensive review the FAA began last week of the 787 critical systems, including design, manufacture and assembly."

The FAA plans to review all aspects of the new aircraft, including design and production. But the review will focus heavily on the electric components of the aircraft. 

The new 787 Dreamliner, which went into service in the fall of 2011, relies much more heavily on electric components than previous airplane models.

Boeing officials said Friday that they welcome a review of the new model aircraft and that the FAA's scrutiny did not diminish the company's confidence in the airplane.

Japan is so far the biggest market for the Dreamliner, with ANA and Japan Airlines Co. flying 24 of the 50 Dreamliners delivered to date.

Shares of Boeing Dreamlier suppliers in Japan came under pressure on Wednesday, with Fuji Heavy Industries, GS Yuasa Corp, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, IHI down between 1.6 and 3 percent, while the benchmark Nikkei shed 1.3 percent.

Japanese authorities said on Monday they would investigate fuel leaks on a 787 operated by JAL, and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said later its agents would analyse the lithium-ion battery and burned wire bundles from a fire aboard another JAL 787 at Boston's Logan Airport last week. 

NBC News' Allison Linn and Arata Yamamoto contributed reporting. 

BERLIN -- A married couple went on trial in Germany on Tuesday accused of handing hundreds of sensitive NATO and European Union documents to Russia during a two-decade spying career that continued well beyond the end of the Cold War. 

Federal prosecutors accuse Andreas Anschlag and his wife Heidrun -- suspected Russian citizens whose names are aliases -- of entering West Germany in 1988 with forged Austrian passports and fabricating a suburban middle-class existence to cover their espionage. 

So perfect was the subterfuge that even their own daughter did not know of their spying, German media reported. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin worked for the Soviet intelligence agency the KGB in East Germany in the 1980s when the couple are accused of having started their career. 

"This is a case of treason that has been going on for more than 20 years, involving the entire range of intelligence activity, from trying to recruit new sources to instructing others, all the way to writing their own reports on political and military matters," federal prosecutor Rolf Hannich said. 

"These are documents and evaluations on NATO's policies which are of course of high interest to the other side because they can then adapt their own behavior." 

The couple said nothing at Tuesday's court hearing. In Germany, the accused are not required to submit a plea. 

The indictment said one of the sources for the secret documents procured by the Anschlags was a person working for the Dutch foreign ministry. 

German special forces arrested them in separate raids on their family home in Marburg, central Germany, and on an apartment near the southwestern city of Stuttgart in the early hours of October 18, 2011. 

According to reports, Heidrun Anschlag was at home in the process of receiving radio messages from Moscow when the Marburg raid took place at what they described as a typical, middle-class suburban family house. 

Hannich said the prosecution's task had been rendered more difficult because the couple had already been preparing their return to Russia and had destroyed many documents from before 2008. 

Documents obtained by the couple related to such matters as NATO's political and military affairs, the EU's military, police and civil missions, political negotiations on EU bodies and the situation in eastern European and Central Asian countries. 

Economic ties between Russia and Germany are booming but Chancellor Angela Merkel, who grew up in former communist East Germany, has also criticized Moscow's human rights record and clampdown on political dissent. 

In Germany, spying can be punished by up to 10 years in jail. 

AFP - Getty Images

Miriam Rodriguez shows a picture of her late son Ubaldo Pino -- who died of cholera on Jan. 6 -- on Jan. 15, 2013 in Havana. The official newspaper Granma announced Tuesday a cholera outbreak has allegedly sickened 51 people in Havana.

Cuban authorities are scrambling to contain a cholera outbreak that has sickened dozens of people in Havana, the capital city of 2.2 million residents and a popular tourism destination.

In a brief communiqué issued on Tuesday, the Health Ministry said the outbreak was first detected on Jan. 6, and was being contained.

"Fifty-one cases have been confirmed to date," the statement read, without mentioning fatalities.

"Due to the measures adopted, transmission is in the phase of extinction," it said.

But in off-the-record discussions with a ministry official and doctor directly involved in fighting the outbreak, a different picture emerged with hundreds of suspected cases.

They said the first cases were traced to a baseball game at the Latin American Stadium in the Cerro municipality of the Cuban capital, where fans come from all parts of the city to watch their team, the Industriales, play.

"We know what happened. Either the pork sandwiches or Tan Rico soda pop was contaminated at a game earlier this month," the official said.

"Even some of the baseball players became sick," she added.

The Health Ministry statement said the outbreak had begun in Cerro and "later spread to other municipalities in the capital."

Tens of thousands of tourists are visiting Havana, but there have been no reports of foreigners catching the illness.

Community clinics and family doctors are on high alert and giving out instructions to prevent the disease, transportation hubs have passengers sterilizing their shoes before leaving town and eateries are being systematically inspected and sometimes closed, residents say.

There have been scattered cases since then, but all were traced to the Granma area and quickly contained, she said.

"This time is different. There are many cases, but we are well prepared in terms of supplies and the protocol," she said, adding, "let's just hope we can stop this before it becomes much worse."

'Army' of health personnel
Martica, a Culture Ministry employee, tells a tale typical of the stories circulating around the city.

"There is this young man who often buys a milkshake around the corner from the office building where I work. He comes to the cafeteria and eats lunch with his girlfriend," she said.

"Last week he was hospitalized with cholera and an army from the Health Ministry descended upon the area and my building, handing out penicillin, checking the water supply, closing snack shops and questioning residents and workers," she said.

The lack of official information until Tuesday has led to rumors that dozens have died in the Cuban capital, though the official and doctor said there had been only one fatality.

Three Havana hospitals have been designated to handle cholera cases - one for adults, another for children and a third for pregnant women.

Another doctor working at the designated adult hospital, the Center for Tropical Medicine, said they were swamped during the weekend with suspected cases.

Cholera is generally not fatal, but can kill in just a few hours when diarrhea and vomiting cause dehydration, especially among the elderly.

The illness runs its course within a week, making it relatively easy to track, but at the same time is highly contagious, spreading from hand to mouth, through contaminated food and the water supply.

"So far there is no indication it's in the water supply, but we are dumping more chlorine in the system," the Health Ministry official said.

Until 2012, there had been no cholera outbreaks reported in Cuba since well before the 1959 revolution and the creation of a national health system by the Communist government.

Hundreds of Cuban doctors and nurses have worked for more than a decade in Haiti, which has battled a cholera outbreak that has killed more than 7,000 people since that country's 2010 earthquake.

Cuba lies closer to Haiti than any other Caribbean country, with the exception of the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with the crisis stricken country and has reported more than 20,000 cholera cases and 350 deaths since the Haiti epidemic began.

French soldiers from the 2nd Navy Infantry Regiment shortly after deplaning at an air base near Bamako, Mali, on Monday.

France will send about 1,000 troops and armored vehicles to Mali over the next few days with the support of U.S military and intelligence operations,  upping the ante in its effort to turn back Islamic militants threatening to topple the north African nation’s government, U.S. national security officials told NBC News on Monday. 

French mechanized forces will join approximately 500 French troops already on the ground in the country, battling fighters from at least three Islamic militant groups, including al-Qaida in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The military escalation follows intense bombardment over the weekend  by French aircraft of Islamic militant positions in the country's north, where they effectively created an al-Qaida refuge late last year.

The French force will be aided by U.S. military and intelligence operations, the officials said. The U.S. will provide both transport and refueling capability for the operation as well as intelligence, including drones, the officials added. The U.S. Africa command, headquartered in Djibouti in East Africa, is coordinating the U.S. operation, said the officials.

The U.S. has been providing intelligence-gathering assistance — primarily spy satellites —  to the French in their assault on Islamist extremists, which began with a series of aerial attacks that began on Friday and continued through Monday. But French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told the Associated Press that the rebels fought back on Monday, overrunning the garrison town of Diabaly, about 100 miles north of Segou, the administrative capital of central Mali. 

French Mirage F1 CR fighter jets sit on the tarmac at a French air base near Bamako, Mali. France has been using the aircraft to pound hardline Islamist groups controlling northern Mali.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other U.S. officials told the AP early Monday that they would not rule out having American aircraft land in the West African nation as part of future efforts to lend airlift and logistical support.

Separately, U.S. officials in Washington told NBC News that, while there are no current plans for the U.S. to provide direct combat support — American combat forces on the ground or aerial combat support from manned aircraft or unmanned drones —  a small number of U.S. advisers could be tasked to work directly with French combat forces in non-combat roles.

Speaking to reporters traveling with him to Europe, Panetta said that while AQIM, and other affiliate groups in Mali may not pose an immediate threat to the United States, "ultimately that remains their objective."

For that reason, Panetta said, "We have to take steps now so that AQIM does not get that kind of traction."

The U.S. officials say France's big fear is that if they don't eliminate AQIM and other allied Islamic militant groups in Mali, it will become a terrorist safe haven, as Afghanistan and Yemen have been at various times over the past 20 years. Mali is a lot closer to Europe than either of those countries. Moreover, there are 200,000 Malians living in France, most of them in and around Paris. AQIM and other groups could, it is feared, recruit supporters from within that  community to launch terrorist attacks in France. France is not alone either, say the U.S. officials. Britain, Portugal and Spain fear AQIM attacks from Islamic militants in the Sahel region of North Africa as well.

"The ease with which individuals can move from North Africa to Europe makes such attacks a real possibility and are clearly the principal motivation for French action," said Michael Leiter, former director of the National Counter Terrorism Center and now a consultant to NBC News.

How did it begin?
After U.S. and NATO forces helped topple Moammar Gadhafi in Libya, neighboring Mali imploded. First rebels in the north revolted, then the military carried out a coup against the government in Bamako. Amid the chaos, Islamic militants defeated breakaway rebels in northern Mali and last week began to advance on Bamako. That’s when the military-led government asked France to intervene.

On Monday the French continued bombing raids across Mali's north in an effort to root out fighters who seized control of a large chunk of the region starting nine months ago. French fighter jets bombed the airport, training camps, warehouses and other facilities used by the al-Qaida linked rebels.

"In some ways, this has been a long time coming," said Leiter. "The U.S. and France have been very focused on AQIM since at least … 2006.  … Also, in 2007, its major attack on Algerian troops caused significant alarm in Washington and Paris, spurring significant investment in intelligence collection, cooperation and increased military and diplomatic efforts."

The AQIM, a Sunni extremist group, was previously headquartered in Algeria, where Islamic militants clashed with  the government in a bloody war during the 1990s. The Algerians responded aggressively and pushed AQIM south to the border area with Mali.    

Since 2008, the Obama administration has partnered with the French, whose deep roots in the region go back more than a century when the area was part of French West Africa.

"The French had capacity that was hard to come by in D.C.," added Leiter. "This path produced some useful gains, but the French were often caught up with their elections and the like."

Why French are taking on Mali extremists

In recent years, AQIM became "very much focused" on low-level kidnappings of Europeans in Africa, bringing in tens of millions of dollars in ransoms and giving it the ability to move quickly into the power vacuum in Mali.  

AQIM is one of several Islamic extremist groups that have set up shop in northern and western Africa. U.S. officials point to recent cooperation between AQIM and Boko Haram, an al-Qaida operation in northern Nigeria, as another troubling development that pushed U.S.-French cooperation.  

Roger Cressey, who worked as deputy director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council in both the Clinton administrations, said U.S. policy makers also are concerned that AQIM could form alliances with other groups.

"Key for U.S. policy makers is to provide support to the French that is consistent with our specific and limited interests in West Africa," he said. “The long- term concern has been that AQIM will interact with al-Shabab in Somalia and AQAP (al-Qaida on the Arab Peninsula) in Yemen and create a capability that threatens our interests beyond W Africa."

Although AQIM's links with al-Qaida's core in Pakistan have never been "especially operationally tight," noted Leiter, "It isn't clear that it matters much now. AQIM is basically operating independently."  So far, he added, AQIM has been very limited outside the region.

Richard Engel is NBC News’ Chief Foreign Correspondent; Robert Windrem is a Senior Investigative Producer; NBC News’ Chief Pentagon Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski, Pentagon producer Courtney Kube and the Associated Press also contributed to this report.

It was a much-anticipated celebrity moment for the star in the most sensational trial to come out of modern Italian politics.

Karima El Mahroug, better known as "Ruby the Heart Stealer," was met at the High Court in Milan on Monday morning by a pack of shouting photographers. It looked like a red carpet moment, but "Ruby," sporting designer clothes, was heading not for a gala, but for a conversation with the judges in the trial of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The 76-year-old media billionaire is accused of having paid the former nightclub dancer for sex when she was still a minor — a crime that could cost Berlusconi his reputation and 15 years in prison.

Both she and Berlusconi have denied having sexual relations.

Mahroug, now 20, was asked to take the stand in December but went on vacation in Mexico instead. The prosecution alleged that it was a ploy designed to delay a verdict.

This time, the defense requested her testimony, and then reversed itself, asking that she not be required to testify. The panel of three judges agreed that she would not be required to testify in open court, Reuters reported.

Berlusconi's attorneys also made an appeal to halt the trial until after a national election next month, arguing that the proceedings would interfere with Berlusconi’s chances of a political comeback in the Feb. 24-25 polls. The judges dismissed the argument.

The trial's last session is currently scheduled for Feb. 4, meaning that a verdict could come before the election.

With the campaigning under way, the hearing churned up memories of the scandal that hung over the prime minister’s last months in office.

Mahroug, who was a child runaway from Morocco, is alleged to have been one of the main participants in a series of parties at Berlusconi's villa near Milan during which women put on lurid striptease shows, according to the testimony of several young women.

The 76-year-old media billionaire is accused of paying for sex with Mahroug when she was under the age of 18, a crime in Italy, and abusing his office to have her released from police custody in a separate theft incident.

Berlusconi resigned in November 2011.

Now the former prime minister is leading his center-right People of Freedom party into the election. The group’s popularity is edging upward, but it still trails far behind the center-left alliance.

Berlusconi's allies accused the Milan magistrates of trying to sabotage his election bid.

"The PDL is clearly bouncing back, and magistrates are as usual entering the fray," said PDL deputy Enrico Costa.

Regardless of the trial’s outcome, Berlusconi is paying a hefty price for his weakness for the scandal. His wife left him in 2009 claiming she couldn't “live with someone who consorts with minors” and was recently awarded a divorce settlement of $130,000 a day.

Reuters contributed to this report.

A pair of adult identical twins in Belgium have been legally killed at their request, the men's doctor told journalists.

The 45-years-old men, who were born deaf, spent their lives side-by-side — growing up together and then, as adults, sharing an apartment and working as cobblers together, according to Belgian media reports.

The men’s names have not been released but photographs of the identical twins from the Antwerp region have been made available to some media outlets.

Their doctor, David Dufour, told Belgium’s RTL Television over the weekend that the two men had been losing their eyesight for several years and soon would have been completely blind. The prospect of being blind as well as deaf was unbearable to them, he said.

"They were fully aware of their decision," Dufour said.

After winning approval from the necessary authorities, the two men received lethal injections at a Belgian hospital in December.

Dufour described their last moments: "They had a last cup of coffee and everything was fine. They said goodbye to their parents and brother and all was serene. They waved — and that was that."

Under a 2002 law, Belgians are allowed to end their own lives if a doctor judges an individual has made his or her wishes clear and is suffering unbearable pain.

The case of the twins was unusual because the two men were not approaching the end of their natural lives nor were they terminally ill.

But Jacqueline Herremans, a member of the Belgian Commission of Euthanasia, told RTL that they did meet the legal requirements as their suffering was grave and incurable. When they became blind as well as deaf, he said, they would not have been able to lead autonomous lives, and that with only a sense of touch they had no prospects of a future.

She acknowledged this was an exceptional case.

"Evidently they had a particular destiny. They were two human beings who have lived together, grown up together, worked together and wanted to die together. Their suffering may not have been physical, but there was psychological suffering," she said.

In 2010 and 2011, a total of 2,086 people died by euthanasia in Belgium, according to the country’s Euthanasia Commission.

Belgium is now looking at introducing a legal amendment that would allow children and those with dementia the option of seeking permission to die. If passed later this year, the option of euthanasia will be extended to minors affected by an incurable illness, or suffering that cannot be alleviated.

Related stories:

Netherlands dispatches mobile euthanasia units 

Dutch riled at Santorum's euthanasia comments

B.K. Bangash / AP

Supporters of cleric Muhammad Tahirul Qadri wait for their leader in Islamabad, Pakistan on Monday. Authorities put up barricades and sent riot police into the streets ahead of his arrival.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Thousands of protesters marched on Pakistan's capital Monday, promising to establish a local version of Cairo's Tahrir Square in support of a cleric who is demanding a crackdown on corruption and other government reforms.

About 10,000 more assembled to greet the arrival of Muhammad Tahirul Qadri, who has been described by one Western diplomat as a "Pakistani cross between [President Barack] Obama and [the late Ayatollah] Khomeini [who returned from exile to lead the Iranian revolution and who later served as the country's supreme leader]."

His supporters hope to start a campaign of civil disobedience echoing the occupation of Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring protests of 2011, which ended with dictator Hosni Mubarak being driven from power.

Police erected barriers and blocked off key routes to government offices and embassies ahead of Qadri's arrival. He left Lahore Sunday on a 400-mile "Long March for Saving the State."

The Pakistani-Canadian sufi cleric's his much-hyped, much-debated and much-criticized march reached the outskirts of Islamabad late Monday.

Qadri’s most important — and controversial — demand is for the indefinite postponement of forthcoming national elections until government corruption and inefficiency can be tackled.

Divisive demands
Qadri, 61, believes Pakistan needs administrative transparency along with electoral and other reforms — a diagnosis which has found many supporters.

He wants to delay elections and wants the judges and the generals to be consulted when it comes to creating an interim government.

In a country that has fought hard to complete a major democratic milestone - an elected government will complete its first, full term by mid-March — Qadri’s "Save Pakistan, Not Democracy" ethos is creating a rift between Pakistan’s pragmatists and idealists.

Reuters noted that Qadri had achieved fame since returning to Pakistan from Canada last month:

Qadri says he wants the judiciary to bar corrupt politicians from running for office and that the army could play a role in the formation of a caretaker government to manage the run-up to elections this spring.

Qadri's call has divided Pakistanis. Some see him as a champion of reform ...  Others see Qadri as a possible stooge of the military, which has a history of coups and interfering in elections.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Qadri denied any connection to the military and said his aim is to destroy the current political system in which he contends a few powerful families control the political process. 

"People were waiting for someone to raise a voice for true democracy," he told The AP. "They (the current government) have almost finished their tenure of five years. They have delivered nothing to the people of Pakistan except terrorism, extremism, worsening law and order situation, hunger, poverty, lack of education, lack of health facilities, and unemployment."

The AP added:

A one-time member of parliament, Qadri quit in 2004 over what he says was disgust with the ruling system and moved to Canada in 2006. Since then he spent most of his time in Canada with occasional trips to Pakistan or other countries to promote his agenda.

He earned praise in the West when he came out with a 600-page fatwa in 2010 condemning terrorism, using the same language in the Quran and Islam that militants often use to justify their actions. He's spoken at such institutions as Georgetown University and the United States Institute for Peace, and held rallies in Britain against extremism. 

"No elections after this disastrous government goes home," said supporter Naheed Begum, 50, who was camped out in almost freezing temperatures on Jinnah Avenue. "We will not let one gang of thieves take over from another gang of thieves."

Begum traveled from the northern Pakistani town of Mardan with blankets and dry food rations to attend the rally.

"I’m here with my daughters and my grandchildren. We love to vote, but it it important to change things before we vote."

But Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, dismissed Qadri's demands. "This government came through an elected process. And so will the next one. Qadri should be warned. He can come, he can camp out, but if he messes around, if he gets violent, I will mess around back, and doubly."

Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil

Muhammed Muheisen / AP

Images of daily life, political pursuits, religious rites and deadly violence.

Launch slideshow

Malik also disputed Qadri’s claims of support. "No one is with Qadri,” he said. “He had promised four million will turn up, and I can’t even count a few thousand [here]."

Shumaisa Rehman, an anchor on one of Pakistan’s private news channels who was reporting on the protests, told NBC News: "It’s got little to do with the numbers. Forget four million. Bring in 20,000 to 30,000 people into a sleepy little capital, and you’ve got a political crisis, whether you like it or not."

Officials warned that intelligence suggested the Taliban may attempt to attack the crowds. However, volunteers from Qadri's own organization, Minhaj ul Quran International, checked participants for weapons.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Related stories:

Pakistani cleric Qadri: Catalyst for change or military stooge?

Nuclear-armed India warns Pakistan of retaliation

Can social media propel 'rock star' politician Imran Khan to power in Pakistan?

News analysis

Updated at 7:24 a.m. ET: Often the butt of jokes about its modern military prowess and once characterized as a nation of "surrender monkeys," France's decision to put boots on the ground in Mali to battle Islamist insurgents will surprise some.

In what threatens to be a lengthy and dangerous campaign, Friday's sudden military action marked an urgent escalation in the regional conflict.

Faced with the prospect of Mali falling into the hands of jihadists — including some who boast links to al-Qaida — French Mirage and Rafale jets spent the weekend bombarding rebel strongholds while 550 of the country's troops battled militants.

France was warned Monday it had "opened the gates of hell" by intervening in Mali. Paris had "fallen into a trap which is much more dangerous than Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia," a spokesman for the MUJWA group of rebels told Europe 1 radio.

But some analysts suggested French President Francois Hollande, a Socialist who has been dubbed "Monsieur Caramel Pudding," had little choice but to act.

"It is difficult to see what other option France had," Paul Melly, associate fellow of the Africa program at Britain’s Chatham House think tank, told NBC News on Monday.

Having the former French colony under the control of rebels could have created a haven for al-Qaida militants, Melly said, in area much closer to Western Europe than Afghanistan or the Middle East.

Since a military coup in March last year, extremist groups including al-Qaida in the Magreb (AQIM), MUJWA and Algeria’s Ansar Dine have flourished and imposed Shariah law in some parts of the country.

France says its intervention was a response to an urgent appeal from Mali's president. That was prompted by an advance by a heavily armed rebel convoy. 

Mali’s military has proved weak in tackling the rebel uprising. Units that had been trained by United States special forces almost immediately defected to the rebel side — a collapse that "astounded and embarrassed to American military commanders," according to The New York Times.

The newspaper reported that the United States has spent between $520 and $600 million in the past four years in an effort to prevent West Africa replacing Afghanistan and the Middle East as a new theater of conflict with Islamist terrorists.

France on Monday insisted it was satisfied with the progress of the campaign — named Operation Serval after a wild cat — and rejected any parallel with the protracted U.S.-led mission in Afghanistan.

Military engagement would last "a matter of weeks," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in Paris, saying: "Later on, we can come as back-up, but we have no intention of staying forever."

France has not asked NATO for assistance, but two British C17 cargo planes are providing support.  Troops from neighboring states of Niger, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Togo, are now expected within days.

The Obama administration is set to announce military support for French forces in Mali, U.S. officials told NBC News. This is likely to include intelligence and overhead surveillance involving unmanned drones. Officials added that it was possible that a small number of U.S. advisers could be tasked to work directly with French forces on the ground, but not in a combat role.

Reuters

Mali graphic

"We stand by our French allies and they can count on U.S. support," Air Force Maj. Robert Firman, in the office of the defense secretary, told The Associated Press.

Rebels seized the central town of Diabaly on Monday, French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told Reuters, adding that French and Malian forces were also battling heavily-armed rebel groups in the west of the country, which he admitted was "a difficult spot."

French fighter jets identified and destroyed this numerous rebel training camps that served as bases for terrorist groups, the French defense ministry said Sunday.

Dozens of Islamist fighters were also killed when rockets struck a fuel depot and a customs house being used as their headquarters, Agence France Press (AFP) reported.

Reuters highlighted that Mali has traditionally been relatively stable until a Tuareg rebel was "hijacked by Islamists":

Two decades of peaceful elections had earned Mali a reputation as a bastion of democracy in turbulent West Africa but that image unraveled after a military coup in March left a power vacuum for MNLA Tuareg rebels to seize the desert north. 

The MUJWA, an AQIM splinter group drawing on support from Arabs and other ethnic groups, wrested control of Gao - the main city of the north - from the Tuaregs in June, shocking Mali's liberal Muslim majority with amputation of hands for theft under Sharia law. 

'Death trap'
Heavily armed thanks to their involvement in neighboring Libya, the Islamists are likely to deploy all possible tactics against French forces on the ground.

"They have been preparing these towns to be a death trap," Rudolph Atallah, the former director of African counterterrorism policy for the Pentagon, told the New York Times. "If an intervention force goes in there, the militants will turn it into an insurgency war."

Not all experts agree with comparisons to Afghanistan. "It isn't helpful to see it in those terms," Melly told NBC News.

In contrast to the tribal society of Afghanistan, often dismissed as ungovernable by despairing Western military commanders, Mali "has had a structured, functioning government for the past 150 years," he said.

"The West African form of Islam is not in tune with the hardline, Shariah law that the jihadists have been trying to impose, so there isn't popular support for it. Education is valued, for example, and women play a role in public life."

However, finding a political solution will be a long task will not be easy.

"The underlying problems that led to the rebellion in the first place still remain," Melly added.

There is also a growing humanitarian crisis. "Thousands of people are fleeing across the border into Mauritania and into camps where there is not enough provision for them,” Alessandra Giuffrida, an associate of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, told Al Jazeera.

The term “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” was first applied to the French on "The Simpsons" and was popularized by National Review journalist Jonah Goldberg, who claimed he had made it “an accepted term in official diplomatic channels around the globe.”

In 2003, a so-called "Google bomb" sent people searching for "French military victories"and using the "I'm feeling lucky" command to a page that asked, "Did you mean French military defeats?"

NBC News' Jim Miklaszewski and Courtney Kube and Reuters contributed to this report.

Related stories: 

Obama: US forces helped France in failed Somalia rescue attempt

Full Africa coverage from NBC News

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A Bosnian woman passes the remains of a monument in southern city Mostar, 65 miles from the capital of Sarajevo, on Monday. A bomb blast destroyed earlier in the day destroyed the memorial honoring soldiers of Bosnia's Muslim-dominated wartime army.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — A bomb blast destroyed a monument to fallen soldiers of Bosnia's Muslim-dominated wartime army on Monday in the southern town of Mostar, where divisions between ethnic Croats and Muslims still run deep.

Police said an "explosive device" had destroyed the lily-shaped monument in front of Mostar's city hall in the early hours of Monday morning.

Bosnia's international peace overseer, Valentin Inzko, said he was "appalled" by the attack and appealed for calm.

"This violence must not be allowed to spread," Inzko said in a statement.

Home to around 70,000 people, Mostar saw heavy fighting during Bosnia's 1992-95 war.

Despite Western efforts to encourage reintegration, the town remains largely divided between Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks) on the east bank of the Neretva river and Croats on the west, where the city hall is located.

No one was injured in the explosion.

"Police are investigating the circumstances and hope to locate the perpetrator soon," Srecko Bosnjak, spokesman for the Mostar police, said.

The monument to the Bosnian army was built last year, next to a memorial in honor of Croat veterans of the conflict.

Post-war violence in Mostar has been largely confined to clashes between rival football fans, but political leaders continue to resist the efforts of Western overseers to unify the town.

Each community has its own utility services, electricity provider and education system.

Ethnic politicking has paralyzed the town more than once, and in October last year Mostar was the only town in Bosnia where local elections were postponed due to a dispute over how to hold the vote.

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Kevin Frayer / AP

Indian Hindu holy men, or Sadhus, celebrate in the water at Sangam, the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati, during the royal bath on Makar Sankranti at the start of the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India, on Jan. 14.

Reuters reports: Upwards of a million elated Hindu holy men and pilgrims took a bracing plunge in India's sacred Ganges river to wash away lifetimes of sins on Monday, in a raucous start to an ever-growing religious gathering that is already the world's largest.

Once every 12 years, tens of millions of pilgrims stream to the small northern city of Allahabad from across India for the Maha Kumbh Mela, or Grand Pitcher Festival, at the point where the Ganges and Yamuna rivers meet with a third, mythical river.

Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

Hindu devotees bathe in the waters of the holy Ganges river during the auspicious bathing day of Makar Sankranti of the Maha Kumbh Mela on Jan. 14.

Officials believe that over the next two months as many as 100 million people will pass through the temporary city that covers an area larger than Athens on a wide sandy river bank. That would make it larger even than previous festivals.

That the ancient festival grows in size each time it is held partly reflects India's expanding population, but is also seen as evidence that spiritual life is thriving alongside the new-found affluence of a growing middle class. Full Story

Kevin Frayer / AP

Indian Hindu holy men, or Sadhus, celebrate in the water at Sangam, the confluence of the rivers Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati, during the royal bath on Makar Sankranti at the start of the Maha Kumbh Mela in Allahabad, India, on Jan. 14.

Anindito Mukherjee / EPA

An Indian elderly devotee offers his prayers.

Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

Hindu devotees bathe in the waters of the Ganges.

Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images

An India holy man, or sadhu, bathes with his devotees in the waters of the Ganges.

Rajesh Kumar Singh / AP

Hindu devotees take a dip at Sangam, the confluence of three rivers.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• In a dirty, polluted river, prayers are offered
• Hindus worship the sun god as night falls during Chhath Puja
• With a flash and a bang, Hindus celebrate festival of lights

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Al-Kataib Media / MAXPPP via EPA

An undated TV grab of footage shot by Al-Kataib Media, made available by MAXPPP on Saturday, shows Denis Allex, a French hostage allegedly held by Somali militants, who was reportedly killed during a failed rescue mission by French soldiers.

WASHINGTON -- The United States helped France last week during an attempted rescue of a secret agent captured by insurgents in Somalia, President Barack Obama confirmed on Sunday in a letter to Congress.

The French team was trying to free Denis Allex, held since 2009 by al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab, but insurgents apparently killed their hostage during the raid, along with a commando.

The French defense ministry said that 17 Somali fighters also died in the fight.

"United States combat aircraft briefly entered Somali airspace to support the rescue operation, if needed. These aircraft did not employ weapons during the operation," Obama said in his letter to U.S. lawmakers.

Obama sent the letter to Congress to fulfill his obligations under the War Powers Resolution, which requires him to inform policymakers within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action without congressional authorization.

Obama said the operation was warranted to further U.S. national security interests, and said U.S. forces "took no direct part in the assault on the compound where it was believed the French citizen was being held hostage."

Editing by Philip Barbara, Reuters

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