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.
Amid music and celebration in northern Mali since a French-led advance swept the jihadists from power, come growing reports of Tuareg and Arab residents forced to flee in reprisals.
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.
Jihadist forces upon fleeing Timbuktu for the desert torched the Ahmed Baba Institute—a library housing a priceless collection of centuries-old Islamic manuscripts.
In a mission slated to last two weeks, US Air Force C-17 transport planes are ferrying troops and material from France to Mali for the offensive 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.
Rebels who have taken up arms again in the Central African Republic’s south, accusing the regime of not honoring peace accords, have seized several towns in the south.
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.
Security forces mixed it up with protesters both in Sudan, hit by a wave of student unrest, and in South Sudan’s West Bahr el-Ghazal state, where 10 were killed by army troops.
