Ansar Dine

A French armly spokesman announced Thursday that a ground and air strike earlier in the week against an al-Qaeda-linked 'armed terrorist group' in northern Mali left 15 jihadists dead, while no French casualties were reported.

The name Timbuktu has taken on an almost mythical status in Western thought, one fuelled by the remoteness of the town in Mali. In destroying tombs recently in this “pearl of the desert” an Islamist group has both launched an attack on the holy sites of other Muslims and thrown down a challenge to the West, who recently put the famous town on the UNESCO list of endangered World Heritage sites. In an interview with Joseph Confavreux, French historian Charles Grémont gives the background to current events in Mali and the threat posed to Timbuktu.