The West African country of Mali, which has seen
increased
instability since NATO helped topple the Qaddafi regime in
nearby Libya last summer, is facing renewed violence from Islamists
in the northern city of Timbuktu. Ansar Dine, a group linked to
Al-Qaeda, has apparently broken off from the Tuareg rebels with
which they initially invaded the north of Mali, and begun to
destroy centuries-old historical sites in Timbuktu. The
Associated Press
reports:

The Islamic faction, known as Ansar Dine, or
“Protectors of the Faith,” seized control of Timbuktu last week
after ousting the Tuareg rebel faction that had invaded northern
Mali alongside Ansar Dine’s soldiers three months ago. Over the
weekend, fighters screaming “Allah Akbar” descended on the
cemeteries holding the remains of Timbuktu’s Sufi saints, and
systematically began destroying the six most famous tombs.

Reached by telephone in an undisclosed location in northern Mali, a
spokesman for the faction said they do not recognize either the
United Nations or the world court.

“The only tribunal we recognize is the divine court of Shariah,”
said Ansar Dine spokesman Oumar Ould Hamaha.

The parallel with the Taliban’s historical site
wrecking ways in Afghanistan did not go unnotcied:

Shamil Jeppie, who heads the Tombouctou Manuscripts
Project at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, says that
the destruction in Mali is analogous to the demolition of the
Bamiyan Buddha in Afghanistan. The Wahabi interpretation of Islam
that Ansar Dine — like the Taliban — espouses is a narrow version
of the faith, and stands in contrast to what he says is the history
of Islamic learning.

“It’s a real loss for people in the town, in the region and on the
continent,” said Jeppie. “Timbuktu was a center of Islamic
learning, a very significant center — there is lots of internal and
external evidence of this. But Ansar Dine is ignorant of this. For
them, there is only one book and it’s the Quran. All this other
(Islamic) learning is inconsequential to them,” he
said.

Timbuktu, of course, was once a major
tourist attraction in Africa, but that’s irrelevant for these
Islamists. “We are against tourism. They foster debauchery,” their
spokesperson said. Demolishing historical relics, on the other
hand, not debauchery at all, apparently.

And what story of the spectacularly unintended consequences of
military adventurism wouldn’t be complete without some contextless
agitation for American intervention?
From The Hill:

[T]he Obama administration is under pressure to restore
democracy and territorial integrity to the country [of Mali], which
has turned into a hotbed for Islamic insurgents linked to al Qaeda
in the Islamic Maghreb. 

“No matter how difficult this matter is to address,” said panel
Chairman Chris Smith (R-N.J.), “there are too many people affected
for the United States to fail to provide leadership in the effort
to solve this political-social crisis.”

Ignoring, it would seem, those people affected by U.S.
leadership in the past (say, by overthrowing Qaddafi without
considering where all those mercenaries, Islamists and weapons that
Qaddafi controlled would end up).