Battle for northern Mali

Beginning in March 2012, a Texas-size chunk of northern Mali began to be overrun by a Tuareg-led Islamist militant group allied with a Northern African branch of al-Qaeda. A harsh form of sharia law was imposed in the cities they held, and in Timbuktu (Tombouctou) ancient tombs were destroyed.

In January, France and the African Union, at the request of the Malian government, sent in several thousand troops and provided air strikes to help Malian forces free many of the cities and towns from under the jihadi militants’ control, including Timbuktu. The jihadists were pushed out of certain cities into northern desert regions, and battles are expected to continue in northern Mali.

The country faces food shortages and numbers of internally displaced persons.