MOGADISHU – At 18, Farah Osman should not be a battle-hardened soldier. He should not have spent the last seven years fighting for the Somali Islamist extremist group Al-Shabaab, or have been trained by foreign jihadists in handling and repairing weapons and improving his shooting skills.
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Fatimata Wallet Haibala sits among a group of women and teenage girls under a tent, her handicapped boy on her lap. The scene could be a rural picture of a Tuareg gathering in the desert. But the mother mother of five resides in a refugee camp in Goudebo, Burkina Faso, almost 100 kilometres from their home in Mali.
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The Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) has agreed on a revised concept of operations for the deployment of an international military force of 3,300 soldiers to help the Malian state wrest control of the northern part of the country from Islamist fighters.
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What is the value of America’s military and humanitarian interventions? Just look at Mali: Its shattered democracy and roving rebel groups are a troubling picture of an AFRICOM partner state.
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The hardline al-Qaeda-linked fighters who seized control of Timbuktu along with the rest of northern Mali three months ago, consider the shrines to be idolatrous and have wrecked seven tombs in two days.
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May28
Nairobi — A massive explosion has rocked a building on Moi Avenue in Nairobi, adjacent to the Mount Kenya University.

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