French-Islamist Mali War Maps Batch One - The French Counterattack
Geographic Travels has tracked the war in Mali since the founding of the self-declared Tuareg state, the Republic of Azawad, in April 2012. Since then the blog has noted the quick rise and fall of the Islamic Republic of Azawad in May and then the fall of pro-Azawad independence MNLA to the al Qaeda-member Ansar al Dine and allies in September.
From fall up until the end of 2012 the Islamists were busy setting up an Islamic emirate in northern Mali with Sharia law and the destruction of the Sufi Muslim cultural landscape. Early in January 2013 Ansar al Dine and its allies pushed out of the de facto Islamic emirate and into southern Mali.
