The jihadists’ frightening new front
Posted: July 5, 2012 | Author: Julius Cavendish | Filed under: Mali | Tags: al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, AQIM, iconoclasm, Mali, MNLA, MUJAO, MUJWA, Sidi Yahya mosque, Taliban, Timbuktu | Leave a commentExtreme Islamists are threatening the region—and an ancient African heritage
LEGEND held that the main gate of Timbuktu’s Sidi Yahya mosque, a wood-panelled affair with metalwork cast in the shape of crescent moons, would open only at the end of time. In a metaphorical sense that is what Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda who control the ancient trading-post in northern Mali have now unleashed. On July 2nd they battered down the ancient entrance with picks and shovels to “destroy its mystery” as part of a city-wide programme of cultural vandalism inspired by religious zeal that has left inhabitants aghast with horror. Destroyed, too, are eight mausoleums and a number of saints’ tombs. More wreckage is feared. Read the rest of this entry »