He shifted nervously in the front passenger seat: Author interview with Mohammed Touré, Bamako, February 17, 2014.
“Abdel Kader . . . you are the one”: Author interview with Abdel Kader Haidara, Bamako, January 27, 2014.
“You have no right to give the manuscripts away”: Haidara interview.
“I need you to come and see me”: Haidara interview
“Thanks, but I really don’t want to”: Haidara interview.
“You have to come”: Haidara interview.
“You are the custodian”: Haidara interview.
“Every time they drive into the villages”: Haidara interview.
“The rich king of Tombuto [who] hath many plates”: Hassan Mohammed Al Wazzan Al Zayati (Leo Africanus), The History and Description of Africa: And of the Notable Things Therein Contained (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 824.
“Salt comes from the north”: Michael Woods and Mary B. Woods, Seven Wonders of Ancient Africa (London: Lerner Books, 2009).
“the one with the big belly button”: Rick Antonson, To Timbuktu for a Haircut: A Journey Through West Africa (Toronto: Dundurn, 2008).
“The emperor flooded Cairo with his benefactions”: Nehemia Levtzion, “Mamluk Egypt and Takrür,” in Studies in Islamic History and Civilization, ed. Mose Sharon, (Jerusalem: E.J. Brill, 1986), p. 190.
“The great oppressor and evildoer Sunni Ali”: John Hunwick, ed. and trans., Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire: Al-Sa‘dī’s Ta’rikh al-sūdān Down to 1613 and other Contemporary Documents (Leiden, NLD: Brill, 2003).
“spend a great part of the night”: Hassan Mohammed Al Wazzan Al Zayati, The History and Description of Africa, p. 825.
“The land of Djenné is prosperous and densely inhabited”: Hunwick, Timbuktu and the Songhay Empire.
“In the year 991 in God’s month of Rajab the Godly”: Lila Azam Zanganeh, “When Timbuktu was the Paris of Islamic Intellectuals in Africa,” The New York Times, April 24, 2004.
“Drinking cow-milk and mixing the powder”: Aslam Farouk-Alli and Mohamed Shaid Mathee, “The Tombouctou Manuscript Project: Social History Approaches,” in The Meanings of Timbuktu, Shamil Jeppie and Souleymane Bachir Diagne, eds. (Cape Town: HSRC Press, 2008), p. 182.
“God orders that slaves must be treated”: Mahmoud Zouber, “Ahmed Baba of Timbuktu (1556–1627): Introduction to His Life and Works” in Timbuktu: Script and Scholarship, Lalou Meltzer, Lindsay Hooper, and Gerald Kinghardt, eds. (Cape Town: Tombouctou Manuscripts Project/Iziko, 2008), p. 25.
“rise up and kill the Jews”: Ralph A. Austen, Trans-Saharan Africa in World History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 99.
“The King is an inveterate enemy”: Hassan Mohammed Al Wazzan Al Zayati, The History and Description of Africa, p. 825.
“Why did you conquer Timbuktu?”: Chris Gratien, “Race, Slavery, and Islamic Law in the Early Modern Atlantic,” in Journal of North African Studies 18, no. 3 (2013): pp. 454–468.
“All these people, who possess a small degree of learning”: Heinrich Barth, Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (London: Ward, Lock, and Co., 1890), p. 435.
“They were afraid that I should practice”: Félix Dubois, Timbuctoo the Mysterious, trans. Diana White (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1896), p. 289.
“Poetry and works of imagination”: Ibid., p. 287.
“Perhaps in the future”: Kwame Anthony Appiah, “Africa: The Hidden History,” The New York Review of Books, December 17, 1998.
“Say you’re the son of Mamma Haidara”: Haidara interview, January 30, 2014.
“You? . . . Who do you think you are?”: Haidara interview.
“They form the sole population”: Dubois, Timbuctoo the Mysterious, p. 20.
“I have seen them set out”: Ibid.
“Stay here, don’t go”: Haidara interview.
“Nobody’s talking to me”: Haidara interview.
“Pay attention, you have to keep hold”: Haidara interview.
“Who led you here?”: Haidara interview.
“The ramparts of the city were of salt”: John O. Hunwick and Alida Jay Boye, The Hidden Treasures of Timbuktu: Historic City of Islamic Africa (London: Thames & Hudson, 2008), p. 55.
“He’s dangerous. What does he want”: Haidara interview.
“It’s for the town’s orphans”: Haidara interview.
“My predecessors made a number”: Haidara interview.
“I gave out a lot of cows”: Haidara interview.
“tens of thousands of dollars”: Haidara interview.
“You come from where?”: Haidara interview.
“How much do you want for this?”: Haidara interview.
“You found all that?”: Haidara interview.
“When I was at the Ahmed Baba Institute”: Haidara interview.
“What’s the matter with you?”: Haidara interview.
“What’s the problem?”: Haidara interview.
“Who told you about that?”: Haidara interview.
“I was well paid for this work”: Haidara interview.
“You know I have a problem”: Haidara interview.
“We’re going to help you”: Haidara interview.
“I understood their politics”: Haidara interview.
“It blew my mind and the image stuck with me”: Phone interview with Henry Louis Gates, October 1, 2014.
“I am apt to suspect the Negroes”: Isaac Kramnick, ed., The Portable Enlightenment Reader, (New York: Penguin Books, 1995).
“The Negroes of Africa have by nature”: P.H. Coetzee and A.P.J. Roux, eds., The African Philosophy Reader, (London: Routledge, 2003), p. 81.
“It is no historical part of the World”: Robert Dainotto, Europe (In Theory) (Raleigh: Duke University Press, 2007), p. 169.
“suffocating remoteness”: Joshua Hammer, “Timbuktu Postcard: Still Here,” The New Republic, November 13, 1995.
“Sweeping out of the Sahara”: Ibid.
“The next Air Mali flight from Bamako”: Ibid.
“I said, ‘You have to open your own libraries’ ”: Author interview with Abdel Kader Haidara in Timbuktu for Smithsonian, March 4, 2006.
“Really, we are doing good work”: Haidara interview, March 4, 2006.
“Nobody in the family had thought about collecting them”: Author interview with Sidi Yayia Al Wangari for Smithsonian, March 5, 2006.
“This one is rotten”: Al Wangari interview.
“It was a lending library”: Author interview with Ismail Diadjié Haidara for Smithsonian, March 5, 2006.
“This will protect them”: Author interview with Mohamed Gallah Dicko for Smithsonian, March 5, 2006.
“We’re expanding our search”: Dicko interview.
“Dust is the enemy”: Author interview with Fida Ag Mohammed for Smithsonian, March 6, 2006.
“the Zelig of air power”: John Barry, “Lt. Gen. Charles F. Wald,” Newsweek, December 30, 2001.
“vast, ungoverned spaces”: Author interview with Charles F. Wald, at Le Meridien Hotel, Arlington, Virginia, February 24, 2014.
“It’s too bad that there’s no ocean here”: Djamel Alilat, “Avec Les Chômeurs de la vallée de Metlili (Ghardaïa),” El Watan, March 23, 2013.
“Osama bin Laden’s Ambassador”: Duncan Gardham, “Abu Qatada Profile: ‘Osama Bin Laden’s ambassador man in Europe,’ ” The Telegraph, June 17, 2008.
“The GIA attacked families, young people”: Salima Mellah, The Massacres in Algeria, 1992–2004: Extracts from a report presented by the Justice Commission for Algeria at the 32nd Session of the Permanent People’s Tribunal on Human Rights Violations in Algeria (1992–2004), May 2004, p. 12.
“The sound of gunfire”: Ibid., p. 20.
“The weaker brethren”: Robert Fisk, “Mokhtar Belmokhtar: The new face of al Qa’ida (and why he’s nothing like Osama bin Laden),” The Independent, January 24, 2013.
“It was Abed who painted that”: Alfred de Montesquiou, “Abou Zeid veut être le Ben Laden du Sahara,” Paris Match, September 30, 2010.
“He was manhandled [by the police] many times”: Ibid.
“Before [his father died] he had always been very open”: Ibid.
“He is ugly and even shorter than [French president Nicolas] Sarkozy”: Ibid.
“In the name of God we rise up and begin”: Author interview with Manny Ansar, Ségou, Mali, February 6, 2014.
“Tuaregs didn’t go to school”: Interview with General El Haj El Gamou, former Tuareg rebel commander, Bamako, January 25, 2014.
the “eternal Saharan mystique” of “a veiled nomad”: Pierre Boilley, Les Touaregs Kel Adagh: Dépendances et révoltes: du Soudan français au Mali contemporain (Paris: Éditions Karthala, 1999), p. 9.
“He was Clint Eastwood, John Wayne”: Ansar interview, February 6, 2014.
“The Pakistanis are up there converting all the former Tuareg rebels”: Phone interview with Manny Ansar, April 9, 2015.
“Life is like a waiting room in an airport”: Ansar phone interview, April 9, 2015.
“twice as many prayers”: Ansar phone interview, April 9, 2015
“He began to lose his friends”: Author interview with Abdallah Ag Alhousseyni, Leeds, England, May 6, 2014.
“You know the Festival in the Desert is not something constructive”: Ansar interview, February 6, 2014.
“Iyad approached the German ambassador”: Author interview with General El Hadj Ag Gamou, Bamako, January 25, 2014.
“The Germans gave him the vehicle”: El Gamou interview.
“everybody knew about it as soon as it happened”: Author interview with Vicki Huddleston, former U.S. ambassador to Mali, Raleigh, North Carolina, February 27, 2014.
“We wove them together”: Wald interview.
“concerned”: Huddleston interview.
“What are they doing?”: Huddleston interview.
“Tell me exactly who’s out there”: Huddleston interview.
“There was a resentment”: Wald interview.
“She didn’t know us well at the time”: Wald interview.
“I guess you came to thank me”: Huddleston interview.
“Imam, you’ve got your own website?”: Wald interview.
“creating an armed terrorist group”: Jeremy Keenan, “The Collapse of the Second Front,” Algeria-Watch, September 26, 2006.
“We knew he had close contacts”: Huddleston interview.
“Belmokhtar is probably in the crowd”: Huddleston interview.
“He looked the part of a desert warrior”: Huddleston interview.
“You’d better not be involved”: Huddleston interview.
“O infidels and apostates, your joy will be brief”: Habib Trabelsi, “Zarqawi death ‘relief’ for rival rebels: experts,” Lebanonwire, June 9, 2006.
“a bone in the throat of American”: Hall Gardner, Averting Global War: Regional Challenges, Overextension, and Options for American Strategy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 133.
“There is a commercial aspect to what he does”: “Desert Storm Brewing,” Jane’s Terrorism and Security Monitor, November 2, 2010.
“for his Christianizing activities”: Ahmed Mohamed, “Christopher Leggett Death: al Qaida Says It Killed American In Mauritania For Prosletyzing,” The World Post, July 26, 2009.
“He was relatively slight”: Robert Fowler, A Season in Hell (New York: HarperCollins, 2011).
“They would sit chanting in the full Sahara sun”: Ibid.
“I recoiled with horror at the sight”: Ibid.
“it strengthens our determination never to concede”: Alan Cowell and Souad Mekhennet, “Al Qaeda Says It Has Killed Briton,” The New York Times, June 3, 2009.
“was attracting the dregs of the society”: Author interview with Tiéman Coulibaly, former Malian foreign minister, Bamako, February 15, 2014.
“Esprit de corps did not exist”: Author interview with Colonel Didier Dacko, Bamako, February 18, 2014.
“termination of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb”: Huddleston interview.
“one, rather unimpressive soldier”: Craig Whitlock, “U.S. counterterrorism effort in North Africa is defined by decade of missteps,” The Washington Post, February 4, 2013.
“We won’t train the guys to look for Al Qaeda”: Phone interview with Gillian Milovanovic, former U.S. Ambassador to Mali, March 6, 2014.
“It was a huge canard”: Milovanovic interview.
“their own people”: Huddleston interview.
“Don’t turn the radio on”: Author interview with William W. (Marshall) Mantiply, former defense attaché, U.S. Embassy Mali, April 16, 2014.
“The French realized AQIM was a growing threat”: Huddleston interview.
“As a quick response to the despicable French act”: “Al-Qaeda in North Africa ‘kills French hostage,’ ” BBC News, July 26, 2010.
“The [government’s] attitude was, ‘it was best’ ”: Mantiply interview.
“The level of inaction at the presidency”: Political Officer Aaron Sampson, “As Northern Crisis Deepens, Mali Drifts,” U.S. Embassy, Bamako, April 14, 2008, confidential diplomatic file released by Wikileaks.
“I want to be near the Great Mosque”: Ansar interview.
“I don’t think he was flipped there”: Yochi Dreazan, “The New Terrorist Training Ground,” The Atlantic, October 2013.
“Are you sure you’re not heading down”: Ansar interview.
“You are going where?”: Ansar interview.
“Arabs with short beards, Tuaregs with turbans”: Charlotte Wiedemann, “From Holes in the Sand to a Digital Library,” trans. Katy Derbyshire, Qantara.de, April 21, 2010.
“The Westerners come over here”: Wiedemann, “From Holes in the Sand.”
“I tried to remain as modest as I could”: Author interview with Abdel Kader Haidara, Brussels, December 16, 2014.
“The only time I ever saw him frazzled”: Author interview with anonymous Haidara friend in Bamako, January 20, 2014.
“Haidara is a man obsessed with the written word”: Peter Gwin, “The Telltale Scribes of Timbuktu,” National Geographic, January 2011.
“impure as beads of sweat”: Ambassador Terence P. McCulley, “The ‘Frere Guide’ Qadhafi Causes a Stir in Mali,” U.S. Embassy, Bamako, April 17, 2006, confidential diplomatic file released by Wikileaks.
“We knew that we had no chance”: Author interview with “Yusuf,” former Tuareg rebel, Timbuktu, February 15, 2014.
“It’s an age favorable to war”: Jonathan Curiel, “ ‘Desert Blues’ Never Sounded So Good as it Does with Terakaft,” KQED Arts, October 8, 2012.
“645 kilograms of Semtex plastic explosives”: “Nigeria Militants a growing threat across Africa: UN,” Reuters, January 26, 2012.
“He was a good friend of Amadou Toumani Touré”: “Yusuf” interview.
“talked for hours”: “Yusuf” interview.
“It happened at night”: “Yusuf” interview.
“I knew Al Qaeda”: “Yusuf” interview.
“The vehicle made a single tour”: Author interview with a young eyewitness (not for attribution), Timbuktu, February 14, 2014.
“I heard the dog barking”: Author interview with a hotel receptionist (not for attribution), Timbuktu, February 14, 2014.
“at a leisurely pace”: Young eyewitness interview, February 14, 2014.
“It was a journey of revelation”: John Gentile, “Robert Plant Documents His Time in Mali,” Rolling Stone, November 11, 2013.
“Swords turn to guitars, democracy blooms”: Tom Freston, “Showtime in the Sahara,” Vanity Fair, July 2007.
“The festival has been vital in bringing foreigners”: James Truman, “Mali: Where the Music Lives,” Condé Nast Traveler, October 12, 2008.
“You invite nonbelievers to your festival”: Andy Morgan, Music, Culture & Conflict in Mali (Copenhagen: Freemuse, 2013), p. 44.
“Manny [Ansar] congratulates us”: Freston, “Showtime in the Sahara.”
“Mali’s most popular female singer”: Ibid.
“The entire etat-major of the Malian military”: Ansar interview.
“The concert had been going on for an hour”: “Mali: à Tombouctou, un festival avec la star Bono fait oublier Al-Qaïda,” Jeune Afrique, January 15, 2012.
“Music is stronger than war”: Ibid.
“It was us or them”: Author interview with Adam Thiam, Malian journalist, Bamako, January 19, 2014.
“putting an end to the incompetent regime”: Afua Hirsch, “Mali rebels claim to have ousted regime in coup,” The Guardian, March 22, 2012.
“Turn off your headlights”: Author interview with Abdel Kader Ascofaré, director of Radio Communal Bouctou, Timbuktu, February 16, 2014.
“I cannot”: Ascofare interview.
“Abdel Kader, you mustn’t go now”: Haidara interview.
“Where are you coming from?”: Haidara interview.
“They’re going to break into our libraries”: Haidara interview.
“Twelve bearded terrorists from all over the world”: Author interview with Boubacar Touré, owner of the Hotel Bouctou, for The New York Review of Books, August 5, 2013.
“Who are your clients?”: Boubacar Touré interview.
“Mr. Abou Zeid, tourism has been ruined”: Boubacar Touré interview.
“No, no, that’s not acceptable”: Boubacar Touré interview.
“You take out all the bottles”: Boubacar Touré interview.
“Peuple de Tombouctou”: Second author interview with Boubacar Touré, Timbuktu, February 14, 2014.
“Don’t talk like that”: Second Boubacar Touré interview.
“We’re going to have to replace the imams”: Second Boubacar Touré interview.
“We used to go into forty-seven villages”: Ascofaré interview.
“I went to this celebration”: Author interview with Ibrahim Khalil Touré, Timbuktu, for The New York Review of Books, August 5, 2013.
“Shariah is going to come little by little”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“Abou Zeid had a preternatural calm”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“Everything happened little by little”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“I saw three members of the Islamic police”: Human Rights Watch, “Collapse, Conflict, and Atrocity in Mali: Human Rights Watch Reporting on the 2012–13 Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath,” p. 88.
“he frantically tried to hit the answer button”: Ibid.
“They removed the memory card”: Ibid., p. 89.
“they are a bad influence for children”: Ibid., p. 90.
“The north feels dead”: Ibid., p. 89.
“They’ve taken all the joie de vivre”: Ibid., p. 72.
“We were ordered to wear our beards”: Second author interview with Ibrahim Khalil Touré, Timbuktu, February 15, 2014.
“They sentenced people to be flogged”: Author interview with Hôtel La Maison manager, August 5, 2013.
“When someone is arrested, the person is brought to the commissariat”: Human Rights Watch, “Collapse, Conflict, and Atrocity in Mali,” p. 86.
“He hit me forty times”: Ibid., p. 88.
“I like smoking”: Ibid., p. 87.
“urinated on himself”: Ibid., p. 87.
“I see them running, sometimes with their guns”: Ibid., p. 92.
“How does he have the strength to fire it?”: Chris Simpson, “Time to Rekindle Timbuktu’s Flame,” IRIN, February 12, 2014.
“We had no choice”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“We are a city that has had Islam”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“They would pray with their rifles”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“Please take care of the Prince”: Author interview with Moussa Isuf Maiga, Gao resident, in Gao, February 11, 2014.
“They went on television and assured us”: Author interview with Sane Chirfi Alpha, Timbuktu, February 14, 2014.
“We could read between the lines”: Chirfi interview.
“These manuscripts show a community”: Phone interview with Deborah Stolk, Prince Claus Fund, August 30, 2013.
“wonderful books about playing the lute”: Author interview with Emily Brady, Timbuktu, January 23, 2014.
“Abdel Kader called me”: Brady interview.
“What do we have to do?”: Haidara interview.
“I ran the library”: Author interview with Mohammed Touré, Bamako, February 17, 2014.
“It looks like ordinary baggage”: Mohammed Touré interview.
“Listen. . . . I want to bring some trunks”: Haidara interview.
“We moved them by night”: Author interview with anonymous mule-cart driver, Timbuktu, August 6, 2013.
“They were owners”: Mohammed Touré interview.
“If I talk about”: Haidara interview.
“They said that saints are not acceptable”: Chirfi interview.
“Beware of those who preceded you”: Mohamad Tajuddin Mohamad Rasdi, Rethinking the Mosque in the Modern Muslim Society (Kuala Lumpur: Institut Terjemahan & Buku Malaysia Berhad, 2014), p. 191.
“We pray to them for everything we look for in life”: Human Rights Watch, “Collapse, Conflict, and Atrocity in Mali,” p. 94.
“Over the period of several days”: Ibid., p. 113.
“We knew we would be next”: “Yusuf” interview.
“We lost our dream of Azawad”: “Yusuf” interview.
“We do not want Satan’s music”: Morgan, Music, Culture & Conflict in Mali, p. 21.
“saw my sound system and my instruments”: Lloyd Gedye, “Tuareg Blues: A Struggle for Life, Land and Freedom,” The Con, September 4, 2013.
“When I heard the sentence I got weak”: Author interview with Muhamen Bebao for The New York Review of Books, January 26, 2013.
“People think it’s done with a single stroke”: Author interview with eyewitness to amputation, in Bamako, for The New York Review of Books, January 26, 2013.
“At around three p.m. they took me to the public square”: Human Rights Watch, “Collapse, Conflict, and Atrocity in Mali,” p. 83.
“It was horrible”: NBC News Staff and Wire Reports, “Mali al-Qaida-linked group stones couple to death over alleged adultery,” NBC News, July 31, 2012.
“Aliou took two butcher knives”: Human Rights Watch, “Collapse, Conflict, and Atrocity in Mali,” p. 84.
“You will not do this in Gao”: Moussa Isuf Maiga interview.
“He lived in the house”: Mohammed Touré interview.
“These manuscripts are at risk”: Haidara interview.
“Why are you whipping women”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“What are the reasons that you women”: Author interview with Tina Traoré, Timbuktu, February 15, 2014.
“It’s still not time”: Brady interview.
“You have to get them out”: Haidara interview.
“This is clear”: Jemal Oumar and Essam Mohamed, “From Mashreq to Maghreb: al-Qaeda shifts focus,” Magharebia, August 26, 2012.
“I knew we didn’t have much time”: Haidara interview.
“We began to panic”: Brady interview.
“We’re desperate”: Brady interview.
“What are you carrying?”: Mohammed Touré interview.
“I had so many worries”: Haidara interview.
“I saw him with the manuscripts”: Brady interview.
“That is the only reason”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“You cannot come in”: Mohammed Touré interview.
“the chaos and violence in Mali [threatens] to undermine the stability”: Hillary Clinton, “Transcript: Clinton’s remarks at UN Secretary General Meeting on the Sahel,” U.S. Africom Public Affairs, September 26, 2012.
“As each day goes by”: Eric Schmitt, “American Commander Details Al Qaeda’s Strength in Mali,” The New York Times, December 3, 2012.
“We warn all the countries”: “Les Islamistes prêts au combat contre le CEDEAO et l’OTAN,” exclusive interview on Malian television, October 22, 2012.
“It was no longer a place for sin”: Author interview with Manny Ansar for The New York Review of Books, January 26, 2013.
“They are off to war”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“The military returned to their camp to eat around dawn”: Author interview with Boubacar Dialo, in Konna, Mali, February 9, 2014.
“They ate, they were exultant”: Dialo interview.
“They flanked them”: Dialo interview.
“Your town was long terrorized”: Author interview with Osman Ba, in Sévaré, Mali, for The New York Review of Books, January 29, 2013.
“Bring me more tea”: Brady interview.
“The French were disgusted”: Huddleston interview.
“The French people are ready”: Steven Erlanger, “The French Way of War,” The New York Times, January 19, 2013.
“At first we thought”: Ba interview.
“This flag lived only for nineteen hours”: Dialo interview.
“intelligence, equipment, financing, and training”: Vicki Huddleston, “Why We Must Help Save Mali,” The New York Times, January 14, 2013.
“The Niger, with its vast and misty horizons”: Dubois, Timbuctoo the Mysterious, p. 18.
“When the jihadis arrived”: Author interview with Mohannan Sidi Maiga, Toya, Mali, for Smithsonian, August 5, 2014.
“Toya is off the track”: Maiga interview.
“We killed and injured hundreds of them”: Ascofaré interview.
“Normally our marabouts read”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“That holiday does not exist”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“Fine. . . . But you still can’t do it”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“The moments of sunset upon the river”: Dubois, Timbuctoo the Mysterious, p. 35.
“Open the footlockers”: Haidara interview.
“a huge basin of water”: Dubois, Timbuctoo the Mysterious, p. 30.
“It is in truth a singular element”: Ibid., p. 33.
“We will keep these”: Brady interview.
“Trust me on this”: Haidara interview.
“75 FOOTLOCKERS GOING THROUGH”: Brady interview.
“We still call this place ‘Chirac’s Dune’ ”: Author interview with Azima Ag Ali Mohammed for The New York Review of Books, August 6, 2014.
“This is where Abou Zeid held his meetings”: Azima Ag Ali Mohammed interview.
“There can be no mockery of us”: Ibrahim Khalil Touré interview.
“A caretaker saw smoke rising”: Author interview with Bouya Haidara, Timbuktu, for Smithsonian, August 6, 2014.
“All of them—untouched”: Bouya Haidara interview.
“The only response can be”: Author interview with Abdel Kader Haidara, Brussels, December 16, 2014.
“These Wahhabis who came to Timbuktu”: Haidara interview.
“spectacular attacks”: Shura Council of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb to Shura Council of the Masked Brigade, “Al-Qaida Papers,” Associated Press, October 3, 2012.
“Go to the Ametettaï Valley”: Author interview with General Bernard Barrera, Paris, March 18, 2014.
“desolate, near-desert country under a burning sun”: M. J. Joffre, Opérations de la colonne Joffre avant et après l’occupation de Tombouctou (Paris: Berger-Levrault & Cie., 1895).
“We are going to suffer losses”: Laurent Larcher, “La Bataille de L’Ametettai du général Barrera au Mali,” la Croix, May 28, 2013.
“They push everything to the extreme”: Author interview with Captain Raphaël Oudot de Dainville, May 10, 2014.
“It was a disaster without precedent”: Louis Frèrejean, Objectif Tombouctou: Combats contre les Toucouleurs et les Touareg (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996), p. 258.
“The French have hit us very badly”: Barrera interview.
“In the next few days”: Barrera interview.
“with courage and tenacity”: Barrera interview.
“It belongs to a Savama-DCI family”: Haidara interview.
“the first pragmatic step”: Brady interview.
“The dampness and the rain”: Haidara interview.
“Some of the terrorists have gone back there”: Author interview with anonymous French colonel, Kidal, February 3, 2014.
“Nobody is in control here”: Author interview with Mohamed Diare, U.N. minister of economy and finance of Guinea, Kidal, Mali, February 3, 2014.
“Iyad is not finished”: Ansar interview.
“I don’t think the jihadis”: Barrera interview.
“When we were in Timbuktu”: Haidara interview.
“When I was young”: Haidara interview.
“I send money to Timbuktu”: Haidara interview.
“Each time the scribe commenced”: Haidara interview.
“Notice how many times”: Haidara interview.