Jihadist Insurgency and Threats to Islamic Heritage in Mali

Northern Mali has experienced a prolonged jihadist insurgency since 2012, when Tuareg separatist rebellion combined with and was then overtaken by al-Qaeda and later Islamic State-linked militant groups seeking to impose a strict interpretation of sharia law across the region, prompting a 2013 French military intervention that recaptured major towns including Timbuktu from militant control. During their occupation of Timbuktu, militant fighters affiliated with Ansar Dine deliberately destroyed numerous ancient Sufi shrines and mausoleums, considering veneration of Muslim saints idolatrous, actions the International Criminal Court later prosecuted as war crimes in the landmark 2016 conviction of Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, the first ICC case focused specifically on cultural heritage destruction.

Local custodians and scholars had smuggled tens of thousands of Timbuktu's historic manuscripts out of the city ahead of and during the occupation to protect them from destruction, an effort widely covered internationally as a race to preserve one of Africa's most significant Islamic scholarly heritages. The insurgency has continued in various forms since, with jihadist groups still controlling significant rural territory in central and northern Mali and continuing to target both government forces and communities practicing forms of Islam or animism the militants consider insufficiently orthodox.