[Airbornelawyer]

Some more developments:

Mali government rejects north's independence

African Union to take Mali to U.N. Security Council: source

"The African Union will go to the Security Council and then it will be up to it to find the right format for a resolution and if it deems military support necessary," said the source close to Thomas Boni Yayi, the Benin president and head of the African Union.

...

Yayi, who met Hollande on Tuesday, was quoted by French media as saying he wanted a UN-backed force to intervene in Mali along the lines of the African Union force in Somalia.

France has previously said it would provide logistical support for an African operation and new Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters on Wednesday that there was a real risk of the region turning into a "West African Afghanistan."

"We can't let this area become a new sanctuary for terrorism," Le Drian told a news conference. "There are real risks. We have to act, but the right players to do that are ECOWAS, the African Union and the Security Council.

Paris has already trained troops in Mauritania and Niger to fight al Qaeda's North African wing in the region.

"It's a difficult, dangerous zone and we are looking at it extremely carefully," Le Drian said, declining to say whether French troops already based in West Africa were being increased or repositioned for an eventual intervention.

And a backgrounder/overview of developments:

Mali: Five months of crisis: Armed rebellion and military coup