CNN's Erin Burnett talks to Tuareg fighters - rebels committed to fighting radical Islamists.
The Tuareg retreated from better armed and more powerful al-Qaeda linked militias. They want their own country in Mali's north, which they call, Azawad. They tell Burnett that they will fight with the Mali government to beat the Islamists.
CNN's Erin Burnett talks to a local journalist who fears for his life covering the Mali crisis.
CNN's Erin Burnett reports from the border of Mali on why the northern region of Africa is important.
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Before this country fell to Islamic militants, Bono, the lead singer of U2, came to Mali in January. He performed at a world-famous music festival just outside of Timbuktu, a desert city just 9 miles north of the Niger River.
The "festival in the desert" has been a bright light in Mali for the past decade. The idea started when rival tribes burned their guns, 3-thousand of them in a bonfire symbolizing the end of fighting.
For nearly 700 years, tribes, even when fighting each other, preserved this city's history. There are 333 holy shrines in Timbuktu, dating from when this was one of the world's great capitals of Islamic learning. FULL POST
CNN's Erin Burnett talks to a Toureg tribesman named Miyamati about the threat of al Qaeda in the region.