Mali War
2012 CE.
Shown on the map at 12.650°, -8.001°.
The Mali War is an ongoing conflict that began on 16 January 2012 with a Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali. The rebels included the secular-oriented National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a group fighting for independence or greater autonomy of a region they called Azawad. The MNLA was initially allied with the jihadist Ansar Dine, which, in turn, was allied to other Salafi jihadist organizations such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its splinter, Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA). On 22 March 2012, President Amadou Toumani Touré was ousted in a coup d'état over his handling of the crisis, a month before a presidential election was to have taken place. Mutinous soldiers, calling themselves the National Committee for the Restoration of Democracy and State, took control and suspended the constitution of Mali. During the uncertainty that followed, resistance put up by government forces in the north began to melt away, enabling the rebels to capture the three provincial capitals of Timbuktu, Kidal, and Gao in three days.
Text from the Wikipedia article Mali War, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.