Malian Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra said Sunday that the government would eventually hold talks with two northern rebel groups, the Islamist Ansar Dine and the Tuareg MNLA, because they are both homegrown movements.

"Dialogue is inevitable. People who make up the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) or Ansar Dine are our compatriots," Diarra said after talks with the chief west African regional mediator, Burkina Faso's President Blaise Compaore.

Al-Qaida's North African branch has sent hundreds of fighters to reinforce its Islamist allies in the tense Gao region of northeastern Mali, witnesses said Saturday, after Tuareg rebels launched a failed offensive a day earlier.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its allies initially fought alongside the nomadic Tuareg people's Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) to seize control of Mali's vast desert north in the wake of a March 22 military coup.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb militants in the Malian city of Timbuktu have arrested dozens of women for not wearing the Islamic veil over the past two days, witnesses said Friday.

"Dozens of women were arrested Thursday and Friday by AQIM for not wearing the veil," a local official said on condition of anonymity.

Mali's Islamist rebels Ansar Dine and Tuareg leaders controlling part of the desert north of the west African country announced jointly Friday that they are prepared to hold talks with the Bamako authorities.

The two groups were "disposed to engage resolutely in a process of political dialogue" they said in a joint statement after talks with lead negotiator Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore.

Mali's Tuareg MNLA group, holding the country's vast north with the al-Qaida and Islamists, will soon hold formal talks with the armed Islamist Ansar Dine group, an MNLA official told AFP on Wednesday.

Reacting to Ansar Dine's pledge to no longer seek to impose sharia across the country, Mossa Ag Attaher hailed it as a "very encouraging step" and added that "formal talks with the Ansar Dine will be held in coming days."

The head of the U.S. Africa Command says Mali's military will take months to rebuild — even as West African nations and their Western backers examine ways of dislodging al-Qaida from the country's vast northeast.

Gen. Carter Ham says a weekend agreement by west African bloc Ecowas provided the "broad outlines" of a possible military intervention led by Mali's government against al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and its allies.

Mauritania warned Monday that the fallout from a military strike against the Islamist extremists controlling northern Mali could be devastating and affect the troubled country's neighbors.

"This country which has for a long time been seen as a model of democracy is like a volcano about to erupt," national assembly president Messaoud Ould Boulkheir said a day after West African leaders gave the green light to sending 3,300 troops to northern Mali to wrest control from the Islamists.

West African leaders at an emergency summit on Sunday agreed on a 3,300-strong force to wrest control of northern Mali from Islamist extremists as fears grow over risks they pose to the region and beyond.

The summit in the Nigerian capital Abuja was aimed at setting out a blueprint for military force in Mali's north that would be transferred to the U.N. Security Council via the African Union.

Dozens of Europeans including French citizens, and young Africans living abroad, have joined or are trying to join the ranks of armed Islamists occupying northern Mali, security sources told Agence France Presse Wednesday.

"Several dozen Europeans, including French or young Africans living in Europe, are increasingly tempted by jihad (holy war) in northern Mali," a Malian security source said.

West African army chiefs met Tuesday to study a proposal drafted by international experts on how their troops could expel Islamic extremists who have occupied northern Mali for months.

The meeting comes seven months after radicals linked to the north African al-Qaida branch took over the vast arid north, triggering fears in the region and among Western powers that the zone could become a new haven for terrorists.