Malian women laugh as one pulls her veil saying she doesn't need it any longer in the central market in Gao, Northern Mali, Wednesday Jan. 30, 2013. A Chadian soldier shops in the central market in Gao, Northern Mali, Wednesday Jan. 30, 2013. The mission by French troops scored another success in its effort to dislodge the al-Qaida-linked militants from northern Mali, and freed from Islamic rule over the weekend, women started coming out wearing bright colors, makeup and jewels, after 10-month of black veils and sharia laws. SEVARE, Mali (AP) - French forces met no resistance Wednesday in Kidal, the Islamists' last major town, as the two-week-old mission scored another success in its effort to dislodge the al-Qaida-linked militants from northern Mali. The capture of Kidal came just days after French and Malian forces retook two other provincial capitals - Gao and Timbuktu - that also had been under harsh Islamic rule for nearly 10 months. Nobody questions France's rapid deployment but the ability to hold on to the cities and territory is an immense challenge. It is not clear how they will be able to sustain the recent gains," said Alex Vines, head of the Africa program at Chatham House. The Islamist extremists have not been defeated; they have melted into the heat haze of the desert. Many fear the Islamists now will attempt to hide among civilian populations in small outlying villages, only to return and attack the weaker African forces once the French are gone. The Islamists are believed to have an elaborate system of caves and other desert hideouts that they have constructed over the last year as momentum for a West African regional military intervention stalled. The Islamist fighters fired on French forces when they arrived in Gao, though the militants had deserted Timbuktu by the time forces arrived there on Monday, damaging the airport's runway in acts of vengeance as they fled. Haminy Maiga, the interim president of the Kidal regional assembly, said French forces also met no resistance when they arrived late Tuesday in Kidal. France's defense minister said bad weather was hampering the troops' progress out of the airport. Maiga said fighters from the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad - a secular Tuareg group that once battled alongside the Islamists for control of the north - had left Kidal as of Wednesday. Azawad is what the Tuaregs call their homeland in northern Mali. In Gao's main market, thousands of women returned to work on Wednesday without the black veils required by the Islamists. "We are free today, we are free," said Fatima Toure, a Gao resident. Back from exile, the mayor and governor of Gao met with community elders to chart the best measures for returning life to normal. The elders presented two cows to the authorities and a representative of the French army in gratitude for their work in liberating Gao. Video footage filmed by an amateur cameraman and obtained by The Associated Press shows a mob attacking the symbol of the extremists' rule, the Islamic police headquarters. Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg; Baba Ahmed in Segou, Mali; Lori Hinnant in Paris; and Andrew Drake and Jerome Delay in Gao, Mali contributed to this report.