With French forces carrying out air-strikes in preparation for an advance on Kidal, it remains unclear if the remote town is under the control of jihadists or Tuareg separatists.
The US military is preparing to establish a drone base in Niger along the eastern border of Mali, where French forces are currently waging a campaign against jihadist rebels.
Algerian military forces attacked the Amenas gas complex in the interior Sahara, where a breakaway faction of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb took dozens of hostages.
With French troops fighting on the ground in Mali, jihadist militias advance on the capital, while Tuareg rebels pledge to re-establish a separatist state in the north.
France carried out air-strikes against Islamist rebels in Mali, helping government forces halt a drive southward by the militants who control the country’s desert north.
Islamist militants in Timbuktu destroyed more Sufi shrines days after the UN Security Council approved an intervention force to retake Mali’s breakaway north.
As Mali’s prime minister is removed by the junta, Ansar Dine rebels are embraced in peace talks—while the MUJAO rebels are sanctioned by the UN as an al-Qaeda front.
Mali’s government is in talks with Islamist rebels who control the country’s north, while Gen. Carter Ham in Washington warned that al-Qaeda has established a haven in the country.
In last night's debate, both Obama and Romney engaged in distortions over the question of when the deadly attack on the consulate in Benghazi was deemed "terrorism."
Drug trafficking and violent crime in Central America and the Caribbean threaten the rule of law in those regions, according to a report by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime.
Three armed Islamists, including a senior member of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), were apprehended in Algeria, in what authorities call a "fatal blow" to the network.
