Two review articles, each with numerous good points. The shortest is by an American academic from FP 'Mali Is Not a Stan: When it comes to covering Africa's latest conflict, it's suddenly amateur hour':http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...rica?page=full

How is Mali different from Afghanistan? First, Mali is not where empires go to die. Afghanistan is well-known as a place that has always been difficult for any outsiders to invade and sustain military engagement, much less establish governing institutions. What governing institutions are established have long been weak and largely decentralized structures that allow local and tribal leaders maximum autonomy. Mali, by contrast, has a longer history of at least some centralized rule. The Mali Empire, which governed a huge swath of West Africa from the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries, included the renowned city of scholarship in Timbuktu. Mali's colonization by France in 1892 was largely peaceful, and the country has never engaged in a serious war until now, with the exception of a brief and violent border dispute with Burkina Faso in the mid-1980s. France's exit from Mali at the end of colonization was accomplished peacefully as well.

France's engagement in Mali is also unlike U.S. engagement in Afghanistan in that, because of their colonial history, the French know what they are getting into. There are decades of outstanding French scholarship on Mali; France is practically drowning in Mali experts in government, academia, and the private sector. This is more important than many realize; having deep cultural and historical knowledge and a shared language (most educated Malians still speak French) makes it much easier for French forces to relate to average Malians and build friendships with key local leaders whose support will be necessary for long-term success.
The tip for success:
...knowing the importance of greeting others correctly is probably the single most important means by which French soldiers will win Malian hearts and minds.
The second is longer 'In Search of Monsters: on the French intervention in Mali' by Stephen W. Smith, a journalist with French papers and now an academic in the USA:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n03/stephen...q_v=8853d77b01

I am not sure who was going to fly in supplies to the insurgents:
When the jihadists pushed south to seize the airport near Mopti, which would have allowed heavy cargo planes to supply them in their landlocked sanctuary and put them in a position to march on the capital, Paris decided to act.