The Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, in partnership with the Carnegie Middle East Program, hosted a discussion on The Crisis in Northern Mali: Implications for a Region in Flux at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace earlier today.

Speaking on the panel moderated by Ansari Center director J. Peter Pham were Rudolph Atallah, senior fellow in the Ansari Center; Anouar Boukhars, assistant professor of international relations at McDaniel College and co-project leader of the Carnegie Endowment’s Mauritania Working Group; and H.E. Maman Sidikou, Ambassador of the Republic of Niger to the United States.

The panelists highlighted the complex histories that led to the Tuareg uprising in the three Saharan provinces and to the overthrow of the elected government in the capital of Bamako before discussing the political and security challenges faced by the West African country, its neighbors, and the international communities since the collapse of government authority in the northern part of the country two months ago and the increased presence of armed Islamist extremist groups there, including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

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Related Experts: J. Peter Pham and Rudolph Atallah