Correspondent / behind the news

French President Francois Hollande is under fire for a tax-fraud scandal and a moribund economy, but there is at least one place he can turn to for steadfast support: Mali. AFP’s Stephane Jourdain finds a wave of pro-French fervor in the former French colony, where French troops are leading a military offensive against Islamist rebels who less than a year ago controlled half of the country. (AFP Photo/John MacDougall)

AFP Photo/K. Tribouillard

Desert patrol: Tracking Islamists in Mali

"Scorching heat from above (the sun) and below (stones); black rocks so jagged they rip the military apparel on the soldiers with whom I am embedded; soot-like sand so invasive it sears my eyes and jams their guns; an enemy – never visible, always nearby – hell-bent on carrying out a holy war." This is how AFP photographer Kenzo Tribouillard describes the mountainous region along the Mali-Algeria border where he followed French troops tracking Islamist fighters. Here are his photos, and his report. 

AFP photographer Pascal Guyot was embedded with French and Malian troops as they secured a strategic Malian town on the north bank of the Niger River, recently in the hands of hardline Islamist rebels who had taken over the country’s vast northern reaches. Here’s his account of the liberation of Bourem.

Unmasking a controversy in Mali

This image captured by AFP photographer Issouf Sanogo in Mali quickly caused a stir in the French army, with top brass condemning the masked soldier’s behaviour as “unacceptable.” But the story behind the striking image, taken as French and Malian troops headed toward Mali’s Islamist-held north in a bid to regain control of the immense desert area, is rather more banal than the photograph might suggest.

Islamists controlling northern Mali have demolished several ancient shrines and even the sacred door of a 15th-century mosque in Timbuktu, an endangered world heritage site. AFP has obtained rare footage of the destruction, which has sparked international outrage. But it was not without difficulties: our Bamako-based correspondent, Serge Daniel, tells us how he got the images. (AFP Photo)