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.
A Tunisian court unconditionally released Ali Harzi, the only suspect held in custody over the deadly attack on the US consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi.
Two Egyptians were killed and two injured in an explosion at a Coptic church at Dafniya, near the Libyan city of Misrata. The blast came just as mass was ending.
Islamist militants in Timbuktu destroyed more Sufi shrines days after the UN Security Council approved an intervention force to retake Mali’s breakaway north.
The Libyan government closed the country’s southern borders and declared the southern provinces a military zone in response to growing lawlessness.
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.
Military experts from Africa, the United Nations and Europe have drafted plans to retake control of northern Mali, as West African nations prepare a request for armed intervention.
Undocumented foreign nationals in Libya are at risk of exploitation, arbitrary and indefinite detention, and even torture, Amnesty International reports.
The International Criminal Court is collecting evidence for possible new war crimes charges against both Qaddafi supporters and opposition groups arising out of last year’s civil war.
