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France intervened Friday, dropping bombs and firing rockets from helicopter gunships and jet fighters after the Islamist rebels who already control the north of Mali pressed southward, overrunning the village of Konna. The French, who had earlier said they would not intervene militarily but only help African troops, took action in response to an appeal by the Malian president.

France, the United States and other Western nations have been increasingly anxious about the Islamists' tightening grip on the north of the country, which they said was becoming a haven for militants, including those with links to Al Qaeda, who threaten not only their neighbors, but the West. On Saturday, Adm. Édouard Guillaud, the chief of staff of the French armed forces, said that French forces had no current plans to extend operations to northern areas controlled by the Islamists, but would expect to help African forces do the job when they arrive.

"The quicker the African mission is on the ground, the less we will need to help the Malian army," Admiral Guillaud said. He said more military planes had been sent to Africa for possible use in Mali. "We are in the build-up phase of operations," he said.

The United Nations Security Council had earlier agreed that troops from the 15-nation regional bloc known as Ecowas, the Economic Community of West African States, and European Union trainers would help the fragile government in Bamako win back the north of the country, where the Islamists have set up harsh rule under Sharia law in the nine months since the army fled the area. But both groups had been slow to deploy.

With the fall of Konna and the movement of the Islamist fighters south, the Ecowas commission president, Kadré Désiré Ouédraogo, said Saturday that the group had authorized an immediate deployment of troops "in light of the urgency of the situation," according to news reports. But he did not specify how many troops would be sent to Mali or give a date for their deployment. Also on Saturday, the foreign minister of Mali's neighbor, Niger, said that the country would send a battalion of 500 soldiers to fight alongside Ecowas troops.

In the fighting Friday, one French helicopter pilot, Lt. Damien Boiteux, died from small-arms fire, the French defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, said at a news conference. Mr. Le Drian said that French forces, led by helicopter gunships, had driven the Islamists back from Konna, but it remained unclear if Malian forces had established control. Konna is about 45 miles north of the major town of Mopti, a port city on the Niger River that the Mali government feels it cannot lose.

A spokesman for the Islamist group Ansar Dine told The Associated Press that he could not confirm if some of the group's fighters were still in Konna. The spokesman, Sanda Ould Boumama, told Reuters that French intervention in Mali will have "consequences, not only for French hostages, but also for all French citizens wherever they find themselves in the Muslim world."

Fear of those consequences, at least for several French hostages held in North Africa, may have been a motivation for a failed French rescue mission early on Saturday in Somalia, where French commandos tried to free a French intelligence agent held there since 2009.

Mr. Le Drian said that France needed to act in Mali to forestall the collapse of the government there and the establishment of another area controlled by radical Islamists with ties to terrorist groups. "The threat is the establishment of a terrorist state within range of Europe and of France," he said. France is also acting because it has some 6,000 citizens in Mali, a former French colony. French troops have been moved into Bamako, the capital, to protect citizens there.