Updated with comment below.

In interviews with TIME on Monday, the preservationists [of Timbuktu’s centuries-old artifacts] said that in a large-scale rescue operation early last year, shortly before the militants seized control of Timbuktu, thousands of manuscripts were hauled out of the Ahmad Baba center to a safe house elsewhere. Realizing that the documents might be prime targets for pillaging or vindictive attacks from Islamic extremists, staff left behind just a small portion of them, perhaps out of haste, but also to conceal the fact that the center had been deliberately emptied. “The documents which had been there are safe, they were not burned,” said Mahmoud Zouber, Mali’s presidential aide on Islamic affairs, a title he retains despite the overthrow of the former president, his boss, in a military coup a year ago; preserving Timbuktu’s manuscripts was a key project of his office. By phone from Bamako on Monday night, Zouber told TIME, “They were put in a very safe place. I can guarantee you. The manuscripts are in total security.”

In a second interview from Bamako, a preservationist who did not want to be named confirmed that the center’s collection had been hidden out of reach from the militants. Neither of those interviewed wanted the location of the manuscripts named in print, for fear that remnants of the al-Qaeda occupiers might return to destroy them.

That was confirmed too by Shamil Jeppie, director of the Timbuktu Manuscripts Project at the University of Cape Town, who told TIME on Monday night, “There were a few items in the Ahmad Baba Library, but the rest were kept away.” The center, financed by the South African government as a favored project by then-President Thabo Mbeki, who championed reviving Africa’s historical culture, housed state-of-the-art equipment to preserve and photograph hundreds of thousands of pages, some of which had gold illumination, astrological charts and sophisticated mathematical formulas. Jeppie said he had been enraged by the television footage on Monday of the building trashed, and blamed in part Mali’s government, which he said had done little to ensure the center’s security. “It is really sad and disturbing,” he said.

After posting this last night, I thought I should add a question mark to the headline. At this point it doesn’t seem like anyone is in a position to accurately quantify how many of Timbuktu’s rare manuscripts might have been destroyed by the city’s Islamist occupiers before they fled. Although the Ahmed Baba Instititute, where fire damage was reported, is the principal facility housing Timbuktu’s treasures, there are dozens of family-owned libraries around the city containing thousands more manuscripts. None of the reporting I have seen indicates whether these collections were either secured or damaged.

While the fate of the manuscripts remains unclear, it’s easy for journalists to overplay a story that dovetails so neatly with the routing-of-the-barbarians narrative, rather than stick with what can actually be established at this time — which is not much.

A Quran from the 12th century in Timbuktu

Jonathan Jones writes: The reported destruction of two important manuscript collections by Islamist rebels as they fled Timbuktu is an offence to the whole of Africa and its universally important cultural heritage. Like their systematic destruction of 300 Sufi saints’ shrines while they held Timbuktu at their mercy, it is an assault on world heritage comparable with the demolition of the Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban in 2001.

The literary heritage of Timbuktu dates back to the 15th and 16th centuries when the gold-rich kingdoms of Mali and Songhai traded across the Sahara with the Mediterranean world. It took two months for merchant caravans to cross the desert, and while gold and slaves went north, books were going south.

In his Description of Africa, published in 1550, the traveller Leo Africanus marvels that in the bustling markets of Timbuktu, under the towers of its majestic mosques, the richest traders were booksellers.

They were selling manuscripts by Arab scholars on everything from astronomy and arithmetic to Islamic law, as well as mystical texts on Sufism, the otherworldly, saintly style of faith that the al-Qaida-affiliated Ansar Dine finds so offensive. [Continue reading…]

In a 2010 BBC documentary, Aminatta Forna tells the story of the lost libraries of Timbuktu.

The Guardian reports: Islamist insurgents retreating from Timbuktu set fire to a library containing thousands of priceless historic manuscripts, according to the Saharan town’s mayor, in an incident he described as a “devastating blow” to world heritage.

Hallé Ousmani Cissé told the Guardian that al-Qaida-allied fighters on Saturday torched two buildings that held the manuscripts, some of which dated back to the 13th century. They also burned down the town hall, the governor’s office and an MP’s residence, and shot dead a man who was celebrating the arrival of the French military.

French troops and the Malian army reached the gates of Timbuktu on Saturday and secured the town’s airport. But they appear to have got there too late to rescue the leather-bound manuscripts that were a unique record of sub-Saharan Africa’s rich medieval history. The rebels attacked the airport on Sunday, the mayor said.

“It’s true. They have burned the manuscripts,” Cissé said in a phone interview from Mali’s capital, Bamako. “They also burned down several buildings. There was one guy who was celebrating in the street and they killed him.”

He added: “This is terrible news. The manuscripts were a part not only of Mali’s heritage but the world’s heritage. By destroying them they threaten the world. We have to kill all of the rebels in the north.”

On Monday French army officers said French-led forces had entered Timbuktu and secured the town without a shot being fired. A team of French paratroopers crept into the town by moonlight, advancing from the airport, they said. Residents took to the streets to celebrate.

Toronto’s Globe and Mail reports: Faster than expected, a French-led offensive has swept into two key towns in northern Mali, putting Islamist rebels on the run. But as the insurgents melt back into the Sahara wastes, the world is left with the same dilemma as before: how to rebuild a shattered state that remains a haven for terrorists.

It’s a challenge that Western donors will confront at a conference on Tuesday, when the African Union pleads for more than $400-million to allow thousands of African troops to remain in Mali for at least a year. But money alone is not enough to put the country back together.

Canada is among the countries that will consider pledging funds to support Africa’s military effort. Canada is already contributing a massive military transport plane for a 30-day mission in Mali, and is considering other non-military help.

By capturing the strategic city of Gao and pushing the rebels out of the fabled town of Timbuktu on the weekend, the French and Malian forces have regained two of the three biggest urban centres in northern Mali with surprising ease.

Thousands of people celebrated in the streets of Gao on Sunday, dancing to music that had been banned under the harsh rule of the Islamist extremists. They cheered the French and Malian troops, greeting them as liberators from radical militias that had ruled with brutal force, compelling women to wear veils and amputating the hands of accused thieves.

Meanwhile, the insurgents were reported to have abandoned Timbuktu after repeated French air strikes, while French and Malian forces took control of its airport and probed into the ancient town, cautious because of the risk of ambush or counterattack.

Of the three main northern towns, only the town of Kidal – much further north – remains in rebel hands.

Yet the battle for the main towns was always destined to be the easiest step in a vastly complex task. The insurgents have spent months preparing a network of caves and tunnels in the desert and mountains. They have dramatically expanded their weaponry and vehicles. And they remain an elusive foe, ready to strike back when Mali is vulnerable again.

France has neither the resources nor the will to remain an occupying power in Mali indefinitely. The task for Africa and the West now is to restore Mali’s crumbling military and government structures, filling the vacuum that had allowed the Islamist radicals to thrive for years.

Reuters reports: Residents of Mali’s northern town of Gao, captured from sharia-observing Islamist rebels by French and Malian troops, danced in the streets to drums and music on Sunday as the French-led offensive also drove the rebels from Timbuktu.

The weekend gains made at Gao and Timbuktu by the French and Malian troops capped a two-week whirlwind intervention by France in its former Sahel colony, which has driven al Qaeda-allied militant fighters northwards into the desert and mountains.

In Gao, the largest town in the north where the Islamist insurgents had banned music and smoking, cut off the hands of thieves and ordered women to wear veils, thousands cheered the liberating troops with shouts of “Mali, Mali, France, France”.

French special forces backed by Rafale fighter jets and Tiger helicopters had helped capture the town early on Saturday.

Among the celebrating Gao crowds, many smoked cigarettes, women went unveiled and some men wore shorts to flout the severe sharia Islamic law the rebels had imposed for months. Youths on motorcycles flew the flags of Mali, France and Niger, whose troops also helped secure the ancient town on the Niger River.

“Now we can breathe freely,” said Hawa Toure, 25, wearing a colorful traditional African robe banned under sharia for being too revealing. “We are as free as the wind today. We thank all of our friends around the world who helped us,” she said.

French and Malian troops also arrived at the weekend at the fabled Saharan trading town of Timbuktu, more than 300 km (190 miles) to the west of Gao, and were working to restore government control over the UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A Malian military source said the French and Malian troops had met no resistance up to the gates of Timbuktu and controlled the airport. They were working on flushing out any Islamist rebel fighters still hiding in the city, a labyrinth of ancient mosques and monuments and mud-brick homes between alleys.

Al Jazeera reports: Since France launched its military intervention in Mali two weeks ago, the combined Malian and French forces have managed to quickly retake much of the country.

They have done so almost exclusively beyond the eyes of the media, an exceptional feat in the age of Twitter and livestreaming. Where journalists have been allowed to “embed” with French troops, they have been kept well away from operations and are restricted to marginal stories about logistics.

“In times of conflict, it is up to journalists and the media, and not the military, to determine the risks that they are willing to take to gather information,” the international media organisation Reporters Without Borders said in a statement denouncing the “media blackout” imposed by French and Malian military.

French officials have organised no press conferences in Bamako. Their press contingent in Bamako consists of a one-man band, whose main function is to refer media queries to Paris.

The Malian army has likewise restricted media access, barring journalists and human rights organisations from areas safely in its hands such as Konna and Sevare for some days. The lack of freedom of movement has also drawn criticism from aid groups, who say people are being blocked from fleeing the conflict.

On top of the roadblocks, communications have been cut wherever operations are underway, making it impossible to independently verify what is taking place.

Destin Gnimadi, a journalist at the daily Malian newspaper Le Prétoire, told Al Jazeera that the Malian defence ministry rarely gives press conferences or shares any information with the national media.

Jean-Paul Marthoz adds: The French army is often called la Grande Muette, or “the Great Silent.” The war in Mali confirms the French military’s well-deserved reputation of being secretive about front-line actions. “Locking the information is more in the culture of the French army than of the U.S. army,” says Maurice Botbol, director of La Lettre du Continent. In the first two weeks of military operations against Islamist militant groups in Mali, the French army has released only a blurry video of an air attack at an undisclosed location.

International journalists who have flown to Mali are kept far from the front lines. No journalist has been embedded with the Special Forces that have carried out the first assaults. Most reporters who receive the authorization to accompany the troops are limited to coverage of marginal stories, such as military preparations on the Bamako airport or the “progress of the troops to the North,” very far from the battlefields.

The roads to the North are blocked by a succession of checkpoints manned by the Malian army. “They are very nervous,” says Gérard Grizbec, a reporter with the public service TV channel France 2. “They have received stern orders from the French forces: ‘Don’t let yourself being overtaken by journalists.’ They usually ask us where we’re going, check our passport, and request an accreditation of the Malian Communications Ministry.”

And then they often turn the media away.

“All the reporters that travel to the North come back frustrated and furious to Bamako,” complains Jean-Paul Mari, special envoy for the newsweekly Le Nouvel Observateur. “This is a war without images and without facts.” On January 22, the French channel i>Télé devoted a whole report to the difficulty of reporting. “We try to outwit the Malian army,” says its editor-in- chief, Lucas Menget. “It is like a cat-and-mouse game.” And up to now, it is a losing game for the press.

The Washington Post reports: The United States is significantly expanding its assistance to a French assault on Islamist militants in Mali by offering aerial refueling and planes to transport soldiers from other African nations, the Pentagon announced Saturday night.

The gesture comes amid a debate within the Obama administration about how deeply it should engage in the French effort to prevent Islamists from wresting control of the West African nation. French requests for more robust support from Washington raised a legal dilemma because U.S. law forbids foreign assistance funds to leaders that came to power through a coup. Mali’s military leaders, including some trained by U.S. troops, seized power last year by force.

“The French requested this support, and we believe it was important to move ahead,” a senior defense official said Saturday night, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy deliberations. “The U.S. has the most advanced refueling technology in the world, and we wanted to provide this support.”

The United States has concluded that the expanded assistance is legally sound because of France’s notification to the United Nations Security Council that its mission in Mali is being offered at the request of the African country’s government, which is fighting “terrorist elements,” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. James Gregory said in a statement.

“Under these circumstances, the U.S. can lawfully provide support to France’s efforts in the armed conflict in Mali,” Gregory said. Gregory said the coup bars “foreign assistance funds,” not military support. [Continue reading…]