An RAF transport aircraft loaded with French armoured vehicles has touched down in conflict-stricken Mali to help the fight against Islamist rebels.
French forces have been carrying out air attacks on the al Qaeda-backed rebels in the West African state in recent days.
The UK has offered two C-17 Globemaster transport planes to help out, but the Foreign Office has said there are no plans to deploy British ground forces.
The National Security Council will meet in London later but ministers insist the UK is only providing "limited logistical support".
French soldiers are tackling Islamist rebels in Mali One aircraft has already landed and a second C-17 is due to leave shortly after suffering a "minor technical fault" in Paris.
Speaking in Abu Dhabi, French President Francois Hollande said: "New strikes overnight achieved their goal.
"For now, we have 750 men and the number will increase so that as soon as possible we can leave the place to the African forces."
Foreign Office minister Mark Simmonds said the situation in Mali is a "grave concern" to the UK due to fears the rebel-held north could become a "springboard for extremism".
But he stressed that David Cameron had offered only limited back-up support to Mr Hollande.
"The Prime Minister has made categorically clear that the initial supporting deployment will be for a period of one week," he told the Commons.
"He has also made clear that there will be no combat troops from the UK involved and we have no plans to provide more military assistance."
The US is also providing intelligence-gathering assistance to the French and the UN has now backed the military action.
The Security Council expressed unanimous "understanding and support" for military intervention, according to France's UN ambassador Gerard Araud.
The UN says more than 30,000 people have fled the fighting and accused the Islamists of stopping thousands of them from travelling south to government-held zones.
The Mali government appealed for France's help last week when the rebels began moving south.
Hundreds of French troops were deployed after the rebels overran the strategically important town of Konna - about halfway between Mali's northern and southern borders - on Thursday.
Thousands of African troops are also expected in Mali, to support local and French forces in their fight against the rebels.
On Sunday, French forces forced back Islamists from the strategic town of Konna.
But there was a setback when government forces lost the garrison village of Diabaly in central Mali, taking the rebels within 250 miles of Bamako.
Up to 60 Islamists are reported to have been killed in air assaults on Sunday, which were centred around Gao and Kidal.
Former foreign office minister Peter Hain has expressed scepticism at predictions by the French that their troops would be out of the country "in a matter of weeks".
"That seems to me pretty unlikely," he said. "This could become an incredibly long, drawn-out and difficult morass."
EU foreign ministers are to hold an extraordinary meeting this week, probably on Thursday, to discuss the situation.
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