France, UK appear headed for about-face on campaigns in Africa

Not long after France sent soldiers to Mali to prevent what was becoming a militant Islamist rout of that country's forces, the talk in London was of a "new front in the war on terror" in North Africa, led by the United Kingdom and Europe taking the place of an increasingly hesitant United States.

But a month later, such talk seems like so much political posturing and wishful thinking.

As John Kerry, the new US secretary of state, holds talks with Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, on the first stop of a nine-day trip through Europe and the Middle East, it is clear that the capacity for sustained military involvement by the United Kingdom and France is sharply limited, not least because the public's perception of the threat posed by recent events in North Africa is not dire enough to sustain such engagement.

The predictions were very different at the end of January when Mr Cameron made the first visit by a British prime minister to post-independence Algeria, promising to improve security coordination in the wake of the deadly attack by gunmen on the Ain Aminas oil and gas field where hundreds of hostages were taken by an Islamist gang claiming affiliation with Al Qaeda.

Read more: France, UK appear headed for about-face on campaigns in Africa - The National