Woman who drowned autistic son gets prison time

A 37-year-old San Diego woman who told police she killed her son because of the burden of caring for an autistic child was sentenced Monday to 15 years to life in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

Patricia Corby drowned her 4-year-old son, Daniel, in the family bathtub March 31 while her husband was at work, according to evidence submitted in court.

"I hate you with all my heart and soul," Duane Corby told the woman before San Diego County Superior Court Judge Charles Gill sentenced her for the death of the boy.

After killing her son, she tried to commit suicide but failed, according to evidence.

She wrapped the boy in a blanket and took his lifeless body to a police substation responsible for their Carmel Valley neighborhood.

Under Gill's sentence, Corby will not be eligible for a reduced sentence due to good behavior while in prison. Corby's husband told investigators that he had never seen any signs of mental illness in his wife.

The family had spent $70,000 trying to find help for their son, according to evidence in court.

Corby kept her head bowed in court as relatives told the judge about the pain caused by the boy's death, including an aunt who said the boy is probably looking down from heaven and asking, "Mama, why did you kill me?"

ALSO:

Manti Te'o hoax: Diane O'Meara says she was hounded for photos

Latino kids disproportionately victimized by teachers, lawyer says

Frank Ocean wants Chris Brown prosecuted in clash over parking spot

-- Tony Perry in San Diego

Photo: Patricia Corby at arraignment. Credit: Fox-5 San Diego

Read More..

Protests Grow on Fifth Day of Unrest in Egypt

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

Egyptians in Port Said mourned on Monday for people killed in clashes with the police a day earlier.

PORT SAID, Egypt — The police fired indiscriminately into the streets outside their besieged station, a group of protesters arrived with a crate of gasoline bombs, and others cheered a masked man on a motorcycle who arrived with a Kalashnikov.

The growing chaos along the vital canal zone showed little sign of abating on Monday as President Mohamed Morsi called out the army to try to regain control of three cities along the Suez Canal whose growing lawlessness is testing the integrity of the Egyptian state.

In Port Said, street battles reached a bloody new peak with a death toll over three days of at least 45, with at least five more protesters killed by bullet wounds, hospital officials said.

Such violence has flared across Egypt with increasing frequency since President Hosni Mubarak was forced out by the revolution two years ago.

President Morsi had already declared a monthlong state of emergency here and in the other canal towns of Suez and Ismailia, applying a Mubarak-era law that virtually eliminates due process protections against abuse by the police. Angry crowds burned tires and hurled rocks at the police. And the police, with little training and less credibility, hunkered down behind barrages of tear gas, birdshot and occasional bullets.

The sense that the state was unraveling may have been strongest here in Port Said, where demonstrators have proclaimed their city an independent nation. But in recent days the unrest has risen in towns across the country and in Cairo as well. In the capital on Monday, a mob of protesters managed to steal an armored police vehicle, drive it to Tahrir Square and make it a bonfire.

After two years of torturous transition, Egyptians have watched with growing anxiety as the erosion of the public trust in the government and a persistent security vacuum have fostered a new temptation to resort to violence to resolve disputes, said Michael Hanna, a researcher at the New York-based Century Foundation who is now in Cairo. “There is a clear political crisis that has eroded the moral authority of the state,” he said.

And the spectacular evaporation of the government’s authority here in Port Said has put that crisis on vivid display, most conspicuously in the rejection of Mr. Morsi’s declarations of the curfew and state of emergency.

As in Suez and Ismailia, tens of thousands residents of Port Said poured into the streets in defiance just as a 9 p.m. curfew was set to begin. Bursts of gunfire echoed through the city for the next hours, and between 9 and 11 p.m. hospital officials raised the death count to seven from two.

When two armored personnel carriers approached a funeral Monday morning for some of the seven protesters killed the day before, a stone-throwing mob of thousands quickly chased them away. And within a few hours the demonstrators had resumed their siege of a nearby police station, burning tires to create a smoke screen to hide behind amid tear gas and gunfire.

Many in the city said they saw no alternative but to continue to stay in the streets. They complained that the hated security police remained unchanged and unaccountable even after Mr. Mubarak had been ousted. They saw no recourse in the justice system, which is also unchanged; they dismissed the courts as politicized, especially after the acquittals of all those accused of killing protesters during the revolution. Then came the death sentences handed down Saturday to 21 Port Said soccer fans for their role in a deadly brawl. The death sentences set off the current unrest here.

Nor, they said, did they trust the political process that brought to power Mr. Morsi and his Islamist allies in the Muslim Brotherhood. He had vowed to usher in the rule of law as “a president for all Egyptians.” But in November he used a presidential decree to temporarily stifle potential legal objections so that his Islamist allies could rushed out a new Constitution. His authoritarian move kicked off a sharp uptick in street violence leading to this weekend’s Port Said clashes.

“Injustice beyond imagination,” one man outside the morning funeral said of Mr. Morsi’s emergency decree, before he was drowned out a crowd of others echoing the sentiment.

“He declared a curfew, and we declare civil disobedience,” another man said.

“This doesn’t apply to Port Said because we don’t recognize him as our president,” said a third. “He is the president of the Muslim Brotherhood only.”

Kareem Fahim contributed reporting from Cairo.

Read More..

Yahoo revenue rises on search advertising

(Reuters) – Yahoo Inc posted a 4 percent gain in net revenue to $ 1.22 billion in the fourth quarter, when an increase in search advertising sales offset weakness in the Web portal’s display ad business.

The company forecast net revenue — which excludes fees shared with partner websites — of $ 1.07 billion to $ 1.1 billion in the current quarter, trailing the $ 1.1 billion that Wall Street analysts expect on average.

Shares in Yahoo, which is trying to stave off declines across much of its business and revive growth, were up 1.5 percent in after hours trade. They had risen 4.5 percent before the revenue projections were disclosed on an analysts’ conference call.

“We got the revenue acceleration we were hoping for. Display was down, but search is doing better” said Sameet Sinha, an analyst at B. Riley Caris.

“As long as in the near-term things are not bad, I think the stock will generally act positively while we wait for Marissa Mayer to deliver,” said Sinha.

The company said on Monday its fourth-quarter net income was $ 272.3 million, or 23 cents per share, versus $ 295.6 million, or 24 cents per share in the year-ago period.

Excluding certain items, Yahoo said it had earnings per share of 32 cents, versus the average analyst expectation of 28 cents according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Chief Executive Marissa Mayer is moving to revive the company’s fortunes after several years of declining revenue. Yahoo’s stock has risen roughly 30 percent since she became CEO, reaching its highest levels since 2008.

Yahoo said it repurchased $ 1.5 billion worth of shares during the fourth quarter. Shares in the company were up 1.5 percent at $ 20.61 in extended trading from a close of $ 20.31 on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)

Tech News Headlines – Yahoo! News

Title Post: Yahoo revenue rises on search advertising
Url Post: http://www.news.fluser.com/yahoo-revenue-rises-on-search-advertising/
Link To Post : Yahoo revenue rises on search advertising
Rating:
100%

based on 99998 ratings.
5 user reviews.
Author: Fluser SeoLink
Thanks for visiting the blog, If any criticism and suggestions please leave a comment

Read More..

Soldier who lost 4 limbs has double-arm transplant

On Facebook, he describes himself as a "wounded warrior...very wounded."

Brendan Marrocco was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, and doctors revealed Monday that he's received a double-arm transplant.

Those new arms "already move a little," he tweeted a month after the operation.

Marrocco, a 26-year-old New Yorker, was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009. He had the transplant Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his father said Monday.

Alex Marrocco said his son does not want to talk with reporters until a news conference Tuesday at the hospital, but the younger Marrocco has repeatedly mentioned the transplant on Twitter and posted photos.

"Ohh yeah today has been one month since my surgery and they already move a little," Brendan Marrocco tweeted Jan. 18.

Responding to a tweet from NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, he wrote: "dude I can't tell you how exciting this is for me. I feel like I finally get to start over."

The infantryman also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection.

The military sponsors operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Unlike a life-saving heart or liver transplant, limb transplants are aimed at improving quality of life, not extending it. Quality of life is a key concern for people missing arms and hands — prosthetics for those limbs are not as advanced as those for feet and legs.

"He was the first quad amputee to survive," and there have been four others since then, Alex Marrocco said.

The Marroccos want to thank the donor's family for "making a selfless decision ... making a difference in Brendan's life," the father said.

Brendan Marrocco has been in public many times. During a July 4 visit last year to the Sept. 11 Memorial with other disabled soldiers, he said he had no regrets about his military service.

"I wouldn't change it in any way. ... I feel great. I'm still the same person," he said.

The 13-hour operation was led by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, plastic surgery chief at Johns Hopkins. It was the seventh double-hand or double-arm transplant done in the United States.

Lee led three of those earlier operations when he worked at the University of Pittsburgh, including the only above-elbow transplant that had been done at the time, in 2010.

Marrocco's "was the most complicated one" so far, Lee said in an interview Monday. It will take more than a year to know how fully Marrocco will be able to use the new arms.

"The maximum speed is an inch a month for nerve regeneration," he explained. "We're easily looking at a couple years" until the full extent of recovery is known.

While at Pittsburgh, Lee pioneered the immune-suppression approach used for Marrocco. The surgeon led hand-transplant operations on five patients, giving them marrow from their donors in addition to the new limbs. All five recipients have done well, and four have been able to take just one anti-rejection drug instead of combination treatments most transplant patients receive.

Minimizing anti-rejection drugs is important because they have side effects and raise the risk of cancer over the long term. Those risks have limited the willingness of surgeons and patients to do more hand, arm and even face transplants.

Lee has received funding for his work from AFIRM, the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, a cooperative research network of top hospitals and universities around the country that the government formed about five years ago. With government money, he and several other plastic surgeons around the country are preparing to do more face transplants, possibly using the new immune-suppression approach.

Marrocco expects to spend three to four months at Hopkins, then return to a military hospital to continue physical therapy, his father said. Before the operation, he had been fitted with prosthetic legs and had learned to walk on his own.

He had been living with his older brother in a specially equipped home on New York's Staten Island that had been built with the help of several charities. Shortly after moving in, he said it was "a relief to not have to rely on other people so much."

The home was heavily damaged by Superstorm Sandy last fall.

Despite being in a lot of pain for some time after the operation, Marrocco showed a sense of humor, his father said. He had a hoarse voice from the tube that was in his throat during the long surgery and decided he sounded like Al Pacino. He soon started doing movie lines.

"He was making the nurses laugh," Alex Marrocco said.

___

Associated Press Writer Stephanie Nano in New York contributed to this report.

___

Online:

Army regenerative medicine:

http://www.afirm.mil/index.cfm?pageid=home

and http://www.afirm.mil/assets/documents/annual_report_2011.pdf

___

Follow Marilynn Marchione at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .

Read More..

Unarmed man killed by deputies was shot in the back, autopsy says

A Culver City man who was fatally shot by Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies after a pursuit in November was struck by bullets five times in the back and once each in the right hip and right forearm, also from behind, according to an autopsy report obtained by The Times.

Jose de la Trinidad, a 36-year-old father of two, was killed Nov. 10 by deputies who believed he was reaching for a weapon after a pursuit. But a witness to the shooting said De la Trinidad, who was unarmed, was complying with deputies and had his hands above his head when he was shot.

Multiple law enforcement agencies are investigating the shooting.

De la Trinidad was shot five times in the upper and lower back, according to the Los Angeles County coroner's report dated Nov. 13. The report describes four of those wounds as fatal. He was also shot in the right forearm and right hip, with both shots entering from behind, the report found.

DOCUMENT: Jose de la Trinidad autopsy report

"Here's a man who complied, did what he was supposed to, and was gunned down by trigger-happy deputies," said Arnoldo Casillas, the family's attorney, who provided a copy of the autopsy report to The Times. He said he planned to sue the Sheriff's Department.

A sheriff's official declined to discuss specifics of the autopsy report because of the ongoing investigation. But he emphasized that the report's findings would be included in the department's determination of what happened that night.

"The sheriff and our department extend its condolences to the De la Trinidad" family, said Steve Whitmore, a sheriff's spokesman.

"Deadly force is always a last resort," he said. "The deputies involved were convinced that the public was in danger when they drew their weapons."

On Saturday, relatives of De la Trinidad and about 100 other people marched through the streets of Compton, shouting, "No justice, no peace! No killer police!"

His widow, Rosie de la Trinidad, joined the march with the couple's two young daughters.

"He was doing everything he was supposed to," she said of her husband, fighting back tears. "All we're asking for is justice."

Jose de la Trinidad was shot minutes after leaving his niece's quinceañera with his brother Francisco. He was riding in the passenger seat of his brother's car when deputies tried to pull them over for speeding about 10:20 p.m., authorities said. After a brief car chase, De la Trinidad got out of the car in the 1900 block of East 122nd Street in Compton and was shot by deputies.

The Sheriff's Department maintains that the deputies opened fire only after De la Trinidad appeared to reach for his waist, where he could have been concealing a weapon.

But a woman who witnessed the officer-involved shooting told investigators that De la Trinidad had complied with deputies' orders to stop running and put his hands on his head to surrender when two deputies shot him. The witness said she watched the shooting from her bedroom window across the street.

"I know what I saw," the witness, Estefani — who asked that her last name not be used — said at the time. "His hands were on his head when they started shooting."

According to the deputies' account: De la Trinidad jumped out of the passenger seat. His brother took off again in the car. One of the four deputies on the scene gave chase in his cruiser, leaving De la Trinidad on the sidewalk and three deputies standing in the street with their weapons drawn.

The deputies said De la Trinidad then appeared to reach for his waistband, prompting two of them to fire shots at him. The unarmed man died at the scene.

Unbeknown to the deputies at the time, Estefani watched the scene unfold from her bedroom window. A short while later, she told The Times, two sheriff's deputies canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses came to her door.

The deputies, she said, repeatedly asked her which direction De la Trinidad was facing, which she perceived as an attempt to get her to change her story.

"I told them, 'You're just trying to confuse me,' and then they stopped," she said. Authorities later interviewed Estefani a second time.

Whitmore said the two deputies involved in the shooting were assigned desk duties immediately after the incident but returned to patrol five days later. He said this was standard practice for deputies involved in shootings.

Although such investigations typically take months, Whitmore said the department has given special urgency to this case and hopes to complete its probe in a timely manner.

"We want to have answers about what happened that night soon rather than later," he said. "Even then, we know it doesn't change the grief the family is experiencing."

As with all deputy-involved shootings, De la Trinidad's killing is subject to investigation by the district attorney, the sheriff's homicide and internal affairs bureaus and the Sheriff's Executive Force Review Committee.

wesley.lowery@latimes.com

Read More..

Morsi Declares Emergency in 3 Egypt Cities as Unrest Spreads

Tara Todras-Whitehill for The New York Times

An Egyptian man threw a tear-gas canister back at the police in Port Said on Sunday.

PORT SAID, Egypt — President Mohamed Morsi declared a state of emergency and a curfew in three major cities on Sunday, as escalating violence in the streets threatened his government and Egypt’s democracy.

By imposing a one-month state of emergency in Suez, Ismailia and here in Port Said, where the police have lost all control, Mr. Morsi’s declaration chose to use one of the most despised weapons of former President Hosni Mubarak’s autocracy. Under Mubarak-era laws left in effect by the country’s new Constitution, a state of emergency suspends the ordinary judicial process and most civil rights. It gives the president and the police extraordinary powers.

Mr. Morsi, Egypt’s first freely elected president and a leader of the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, took the step after four days of clashes in Cairo and in cities around the country between the police and protesters denouncing his government. Most of the protests were set off by the second anniversary of the popular revolt that ousted Mr. Mubarak, which fell on Friday.

Here in Port Said, the trouble started over death sentences that a court imposed on 21 local soccer fans for their role in a deadly riot. But after 30 people died in clashes on Saturday — most of them shot by the police — the protesters turned their ire on Mr. Morsi as well the court. Police officers crouching on the roofs of their stations fired tear gas and live ammunition into attacking mobs, and hospital officials said that on Sunday at least seven more people died. Tens of thousands of people marched through the streets of Port Said on Sunday demanding independence from the rest of Egypt. “The people want the state of Port Said,” they chanted in anger at Cairo.

The emergency declaration covers the three cities and their surrounding provinces, all on the economically vital Suez Canal. Mr. Morsi announced the emergency measures in a stern, finger-waving speech on state television on Sunday evening. He said he was acting “to stop the bloodbath” and called the violence in the streets “the counterrevolution itself.”

“There is no room for hesitation, so that everybody knows the institution of the state is capable of protecting the citizens,” he said. “If I see that the homeland and its children are in danger, I will be forced to do more than that. For the sake of Egypt, I will.”

Mr. Morsi’s resort to the authoritarian measures of his predecessor appeared to reflect mounting doubts about the viability of Egypt’s central government. After decades of corruption, cronyism and brutality under Mr. Mubarak, Egyptians have struggled to adjust to resolving their differences — whether over matters of political ideology or crime and punishment — through peaceful democratic channels.

“Why are we unable to sort out these disputes?” asked Moattaz Abdel-Fattah, a political scientist and academic who was a member of the assembly that drafted Egypt’s new Constitution. “How many times are we going to return to the state of Egyptians killing Egyptians?” He added: “Hopefully, when you have a genuine democratic machine, people will start to adapt culturally. But we need to do something about our culture.”

Mr. Morsi’s speech did nothing to stop the violence in the streets. In Cairo, fighting between protesters and the police and security forces escalated into the night along the banks of the Nile near Tahrir Square. On a stage set up in the square, liberal and leftist speakers demanded the repeal of the Islamist-backed Constitution, which won approval in a referendum last month. Young men huddled in tents making incendiary devices, while others set tires on fire to block a main bridge across the Nile.

In Suez, a group calling itself the city’s youth coalition said it would hold nightly protests against the curfew at the time it begins, 9 p.m. In Port Said, crowds began to gather just before the declaration was set to take effect, at midnight, for a new march in defiance.

“We will gather every night at 9 at Mariam’s mosque,” said Ahmed Mansour, a doctor. “We will march all night long until morning.”

He added: “Morsi is an employee who works for us. He must do what suits us, and this needs to be made clear.”

Mayy El-Sheikh contributed reporting from Port Said, and Kareem Fahim from Cairo.

Read More..

Claire Danes Says Son Cyrus Is 'Getting Fat!'

By Sarah Michaud

01/27/2013 at 08:40 PM EST

Actresses don't usually like to talk about weight gain, but Claire Danes was more than happy to Sunday evening. Of course, the topic of discussion was her 6-week-old son Cyrus Michael Christopher.

"He's six weeks and getting fat. It's very exciting. All that time on the boob is starting to result in growth," the Homeland star, 33, told Giuliana Rancic on E!'s Live from the Red Carpet at the SAG Awards.

"He's getting rolls ... thank goodness they've arrived. He's starting to smile a little bit and he kind of knows I exist," she added. "That's reassuring – that feedback is amazing."

Nominated for best actress in a TV series – drama for her role as Carrie Mathison, a Central Intelligence Agency officer, the new mom said her marriage to Hugh Dancy helps her step out of character once filming is done.

"I'm able to disassociate," the actress, wearing a one-shouldered Givenchy dress, said. "There are all these unconscious rituals that help me engage and disengage – like taking my wedding ring on and off helps free me up. I wouldn't be able to sustain it otherwise."

Read More..

CDC: Flu seems to level off except in the West

New government figures show that flu cases seem to be leveling off nationwide. Flu activity is declining in most regions although still rising in the West.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says hospitalizations and deaths spiked again last week, especially among the elderly. The CDC says quick treatment with antiviral medicines is important, in particular for the very young or old. The season's first flu case resistant to treatment with Tamiflu was reported Friday.

Eight more children have died from the flu, bringing this season's total pediatric deaths to 37. About 100 children die in an average flu season.

There is still vaccine available although it may be hard to find. The CDC has a website that can help.

___

CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/

Read More..

Annenberg Foundation to build nature center at Ballona Wetlands

The Annenberg Foundation plans to build a $50-million interpretive center in the Ballona Wetlands Ecological Reserve under an agreement to be signed Monday with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Officials aim to make the center a place for people to "come to learn how nature works and how each of them is a part of it," said Charlton H. "Chuck" Bonham, Fish and Wildlife director.

The announcement marked rare movement in the state's efforts to restore one of Southern California's few remaining wetlands and open it to the public. Activists, developers and government agencies have wrangled for decades over the fate of the 600 acres between Marina del Rey and Westchester.

One wetlands activist decried the Annenberg plan as a theft of public land slated for wildlife habitat.

"I'm shocked and disappointed that the Annenberg Foundation would even entertain the idea of destroying land acquired for wildlife habitat and using it for a building, a restaurant and a parking lot," said Marcia Hanscom, executive director of the Ballona Institute, a nonprofit corporation.

But Lisa Fimiani, executive director of Friends of Ballona Wetlands, said her group has embraced Annenberg's involvement and investment. She said that the acre proposed for the building site is in poor condition and that Annenberg plans to improve the adjoining ball fields as part of the project. "We welcome them," she said.

Officials said details of the Annenberg plan were still evolving but that key elements would include educational programs and exhibits about wetlands, human-wildlife interactions and the history of Native Americans in the area.

The 46,000-square-foot project would tentatively include an auditorium, classrooms, a public lobby, exhibits on wildlife and domestic animals, facilities for an animal adoption and care program, veterinary facilities for animals on site, retail space, parking and office space for staff. A snack bar is also a possibility.

The California State Coastal Conservancy and the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission would be parties to the agreement.

This is not Annenberg's first effort to team with government on a habitat project.

In 2011, Annenberg withdrew plans to create a $50-million animal-focused educational complex on coastal city property in Rancho Palos Verdes. The proposal, submitted in 2008 after several years of preliminary discussions, was for a 51,000-square-foot facility that would have featured exhibit and classroom space and adoption suites for 10 dogs and eight cats. The idea met with opposition from Rancho Palos Verdes residents and concerns of state and federal officials.

A decade ago, the state paid $139 million in voter-approved bond money to buy what was left of the Ballona Wetlands, the last sizable coastal marsh in Los Angeles County, from Playa Capital, the developer of Playa Vista. The Ballona Wetlands deal, negotiated in part by the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, saved the area from development.

The state is in the early stages of an environmental review of the wetlands area, which stretches south and west from the proposed interpretive center. The site, once owned by industrialist Howard Hughes, is home to great blue herons, burrowing owls, the El Segundo blue butterfly, voles and lizards, although its ecosystem has become degraded by exotic plants and dumping.

Talks continue on how best to restore and preserve the wetlands. Activists have made various proposals and vow to fight any plans to bulldoze invader weeds there.

Bonham and Leonard Aube, Annenberg Foundation executive director, said they hoped construction of the interpretive center could begin in 2014, depending on the timing and outcome of a required review under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Aube said the foundation would also consider providing funds for trails, lighting, parking, signage and a full- or part-time state worker at the reserve.

martha.groves@latimes.com

Read More..

French Capture Gao Airport in Move to Retake North Mali

KONNA, Mali — French special forces took control of the airport in the Islamic rebel stronghold of Gao, the French government said Saturday, meeting “serious resistance” from militants even as they pressed northward.

Gao is one of three main northern cities in Mali that has been under rebel control for months, and the capture of the main strategic points in Gao represents the biggest prize yet in the battle to retake the northern half of the country.

French airstrikes have been pounding the city since France joined the fight at Mali’s request on Jan. 11. French troops also took control of a bridge over the Niger River on Saturday, and the capture of the airport allowed a company of French soldiers to be airlifted in on Saturday afternoon, according to Col. Thierry Burkhard, the French military spokesman.

Another French company was on the road to Gao from Sévaré on Saturday night, and Malian and other African forces had begun to arrive, he said.

He stepped back from an earlier statement by the French Defense Ministry that declared the city freed by French forces, acknowledging that the statement was “a bit overdone.” Noting Gao’s 70,000 inhabitants, he added, “it’s not with a detachment of special forces that you take over a city.”

But with reinforcements streaming in, the battle for Gao appeared imminent.

Soldiers from Chad and Niger are expected to arrive soon, the French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said in a statement. They will be part of a contingent of 1,900 African troops who have already arrived in Mali, fighting alongside the 2,500 French soldiers deployed here.

Gao’s mayor, who had fled to Bamako, the capital, returned to his city on Saturday, Mr. Le Drian said.

In Washington, the Pentagon said Saturday that the United States would provide aerial refueling for French warplanes. The decision increases American involvement, which until now had consisted of transporting French troops and equipment and also providing intelligence, including satellite photographs.

Gao, 600 miles northeast of the capital, had been under the control of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, a splinter group of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Al Jazeera broadcast a statement from Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in which the group said it had withdrawn temporarily from some cities it held, but would return with greater force.

Little information has come from the other two main cities under rebel control — Timbuktu, the fabled desert oasis, and Kidal, northeast of Gao — for the past 10 days because mobile phone networks have been down.

Konna was overrun by Islamic fighters on Jan. 10, prompting France to intervene, and a clearer picture has begun to emerge of the fighting. Residents and officials here said that at least 11 civilians had been killed in French airstrikes.

Charred husks of pickup trucks lined the road into the town, and broken tanks and guns littered the fish market, where the rebels appeared to have set up a temporary base.

France’s sudden entry into the fray has left the United Nations and Ecowas, the regional trade bloc, scrambling to put together an African-led intervention force that had been in the planning stages. The Mali Army, which has struggled to fight the Islamist groups, has been accused of serious human rights violations.

From Konna, it is easy to see why the Malian government pleaded for French help after the Islamist fighters took control of the town. Just 35 miles of asphalt separate Konna from the garrison town of Sévaré, home to the second-biggest airfield in Mali and a vital strategic point for any foreign intervention force.

Residents said their town fell to the rebels when 300 pickup trucks of fighters, bristling with machine guns, rolled in and pushed back the Malian Army troops who had been guarding the town after a fierce battle.

Lydia Polgreen reported from Konna, and Scott Sayare from Paris. Elisabeth Bumiller contributed reporting from Washington.

Read More..