Islamists Burn Ancient Manuscripts As They Flee Mali's Timbuktu

The CS Monitor:

Fleeing Islamist extremists torched a library containing historic manuscripts in Timbuktu, the mayor said Monday, as French and Malian forces closed in on Mali's fabled desert city. Ousmane Halle said he heard about the burnings early Monday. "It's truly alarming that this has happened," he told The Associated Press by telephone from Mali's capital, Bamako, on Monday. "They torched all the important ancient manuscripts. The ancient books of geography and science. It is the history of Timbuktu, of its people." The mayor said Monday that the radical Islamists had torched his office as well as the Ahmed Baba Institute – a library rich with historical documents – in an act of retaliation before they fled late last week.

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