by Patricia Lee Sharpe | Jul 25, 2012 | Monitor
By Patricia Lee SharpeTimbuktu, for most Westerners, is simply another word for the end of the world. Today, in fact, it’s a somewhat decayed real city on the southern edge of the Sahara desert. Once upon a time, however, Timbuktu was a vital commercial and cultural...
by Patricia Lee Sharpe | Jul 11, 2012 | Monitor
By Patricia Lee SharpeNot so long ago Buddhists and art lovers of the world were aghast when the Afghan Taliban destroyed the famous Buddhist statues in Bamiyan. I thought of this tragedy when I learned that Salafist gangs known as the Ansar Dine (Defenders of Islam)...
by editor | Jul 5, 2012 | Africa, Analysis, COMOPS Journal, Image, Islam
By Bennett Furlow and Jeffry Halverson Over the past week a militant Islamist group operating in Mali called Ansar Dine has destroyed a number of Sufi mausoleums and the legendary gate of a 600-year-old mosque in the fabled city of Timbuktu. Many news reports have...
