In northern Mali, far from Western eyes, a powerful Al Qaeda affiliate has managed to carve out what...
A year ago, a coalition of Islamist radicals tried to turn northern Mali – a vast expanse of towering mountains and seemingly-endless patches of desert – into a new Afghanistan. They imported vast quantities of weapons and opened training camps for Islamist fighters from an array of other countries. Their new nation, Mali's Islamists rulers said, would be a place where Sharia was the sole source of law and where fighters plotting attacks against Western or African targets would have safe places to live and train. That changed this January, when French forces routed the Islamists out of the north's main cities and put the region under the nominal control of Mali's weak and under-equipped military. What happens next, as these photos indicate, is yet to be determined.
