Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The destabilizing effects of Libya’s breakdown are especially felt in Mali, territorially the size of Texas and California combined, with a population of 18 million that mostly inhabits the country’s southern half. Until recently, Mali was cited by many as an African democratic model; but that ended in 2012 when the country descended into chaos after a military coup ousted its president. The military was said to be frustrated with the government’s handling of the Tuareg insurgency in the sparsely populated far north. But the coup sparked a rebel surge, and shortly thereafter Mali was effectively split in two. A Tuareg-Jihadist alliance took control of the fabled city of Timbuktu—located near the center of this hourglass-shaped country—and declared that the north was now an independent state named Azawad. In 2013, France sent thousands of its troops to help its former colony recapture Timbuktu, did so, and then turned over the effort to restore central-government rule over northern Mali to a UN-mandated, all-African military force. That approach proved ineffective, and by 2015 sporadic fighting had resumed between government and rebel forces in the country’s pivotal central waist." [Geography: Realms, Regions, and Concepts, 17th Edition, p. 273]