Mali | featured news

Within the past few days, French combat forces have deployed to the West African state of Mali to halt the advance of militant Islamist fighters toward the capital and to help the Malian army begin to reclaim towns previously occupied by the militants.

France pledged on Tuesday to keep troops in Mali until stability returned to the West African country, raising the specter of a long campaign against al Qaeda-linked rebels who held their ground despite a fifth day of air strikes.

The French president says the country will raise its domestic terror threat level after military action in Mali and Somalia, promising to increase protection at public buildings and transportation networks.

In a development that could further destabilize Mali, Prime Minister Cheick Modibo Diarra resigned on Tuesday, hours after he was arrested by soldiers on his way out of the country.

Security officials frequently talk of Mali as being “the new Afghanistan.” They fear that deep inside the country’s northern desert, al-Qaida has carved out a new home -- not only a safe haven for terrorists, but a training ground for a new generation of Islamist militants.

Islamists in northern Mali have recruited and paid for as many as 1,000 children from rural towns and villages devastated by poverty and hunger. The Associated Press spoke with four children and conducted several dozen interviews with residents and human rights officials. The AP also saw several other children with machine guns half their size strolling down the streets in Timbuktu, where Westerners can no longer go because of the threat of kidnapping.

It was dusk when the aging Toyota pickup truck pulled into the first military checkpoint, loaded with at least 17 bearded men fingering prayer beads....

An al-Qaida-linked Islamist militant group in control of northern Mali stoned to death a couple accused of engaging in extramarital affairs, the group's spokesman said.

In his first address to the nation since returning from his two-month-long exile, Mali's interim president on Sunday said that he "fully trusts" the army to assure his security, and outlined plans for the transitional government he hopes to lead until new elections can be held.

Perhaps most of all, it was like a bucket of ice water over the heads of Mali's 15.4 million people, who saw two decades of democracy collapse in just a few hours into what is rapidly becoming an ungovernable hole and a haven for al-Qaida-linked terrorists.