French troops in the north are leading the efforts to disarm Tuareg militias, which is one condition of the June 26 peace deal. Unofficially the French are also expected to ensure that Mali soldiers from the south (who are from different tribes and ethnic groups) do not abuse the Tuareg and Arab majority in the north.

Not all weapons are being taken as many Tuareg regularly travel the thinly populated countryside where the risk of encountering bandits or Islamic terrorists still exists. But the treaty bans unauthorized heavy weapons (machine-guns, mortars or simply more small arms than were needed to deal with bandits). Getting these weapons out of circulation also makes local conflicts (over land, family matters or whatever) less lethal.

Meanwhile the Islamic terrorists are distracted by budget problems. AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb) has long been most active terror group in the north but is now showing up in the south, mainly to deal with the growing drug smuggling operations. This is the major source of income for Islamic terrorists in the region and even Ansar Dine is getting involved. For over a decade the main product being moved north was cocaine from South America, but now opium and heroin from Afghanistan is showing up.

There is also a lot of locally produced cannabis and hashish that is also sold locally and in North Africa. AQIM has come to dominate the drug smuggling because of their ruthlessness. To deal with AQIM and their drug smuggling, an international counter-terrorism operations in Sahel (the semi-desert area just below the Sahara) are mostly in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso was created after 2013.

Led by France and the United States and working closely with local forces the pressure has forced Islamic terror groups to concentrate more on raising money and avoiding detection and destruction. While some purist Islamic terrorists disagree with this approach, most Islamic terrorists understand that without cash their numbers would be a lot fewer and there would be fewer weapons and other essential items (like explosives for bombs) available.

Maj.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, the Acting Chief of Army Staff, on Sunday launched “Operation Lafiya Dole” as a new code name for a fresh impetus by the military to tackle the activities of Boko Haram.

This replaces the former “Operation Zaman Lafiya”.

The new code name was derived from Hausa language, which literally translates “Peace by All Means”.

Buratai announced this while addressing troops of the 103 Battalion in Konduga, headquarters of Konduga Local Government Area of Borno.

He said that the objective was to transform the army professionally as well as fast track the war against the Boko Haram terrorists.

“It is the wish of the Federal Government to end this terrorism quickly in this part of the country and indeed some other challenges in the South South and other parts of the country.

“This will make us to have a very peaceful country free from any insecurity,” Buratai said.

He lamented that the fight against terrorism had lasted for a very long time without much results.

“Consequently as from today July 19, we are here to bury the `Operation Zaman Lafiya’ and give birth to what we will henceforth call Operation Lafiya Dole.

“Operation Lafiya Dole is derived from the belief that we must end this insecurity. We must restore peace to all parts of the North East and other parts of the country that are affected by insurgency.

“We are going to carry this as a war and I appeal to all and sundry to give this operation maximum cooperation.

“We will carry the civil population along, we wil also observe the principle of human rights and respect human dignity. We will not trample on anybody’s right,” Buratai said.

He expressed optimism that the operation will yield dividends in a very short time. “As the insurgents have refused to understand and come to the right way we must force them to make sure that peace return to all parts of Nigeria,” Buratai said.

NAN reports that the Acting COAS also visited the Shehu of Borno Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Garbai at his palace in Maiduguri.

“I want to assure you that the peace associated with Borno is about to return by the grace of God.

“Borno has of recent been badly affected by the Boko Haram terrorism, I want to assure you that all that is going to be a thing of the past soon,” he told the monarch.

Buratai assured the Shehu that the military will introduce renewed vigour in its anti-insurgency approach in the next few weeks.

“By the grace of God you will start seeing some changes in our operations soon,” he said.

Buratai said that the people of Konduga, displaced by the insurgents, would be allowed to return home in the next one week.

“Government is not happy at the level of displaced persons living in camps.

“The people of Konduga will start going back home in the next one week so that they can start rebuilding their homes,” he said.

Buratai promised to deploy additional troops to provide enough security in the area.

He said that his main goal was to build an army that was professionally sound to perform its constitutional role.

“My goal is to have a professional Nigerian Army that can adequately perform its constitutional role in all ramification.

“I intend to pursue this goal of transforming the army into one of the best in the world,” Buratai said.

Fourteen mausoleums in Mali’s northern city of Timbuktu that were destroyed by Islamic extremists have been restored by the United Nations.

UNESCO’s director general and Mali’s cultural minister inaugurated the reconstructed mausoleums Saturday in this desert city that was a major center of learning and trade in the Middle Ages.

“We celebrate a day that turns a page in our dark history. The reconstruction of these mausoleums helps us forget those moments of desolation,” said the mayor of Timbuktu Halle Ousmane.

The entire city of Timbuktu is listed as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. At the peak of its influence in the 15th and 16th centuries, Timbuktu counted 180 schools and universities which received thousands of students from all over the Muslim world.

Islamic radicals who overran Timbuktu in 2012 destroyed 14 of the city’s 16 mausoleums, one-room structures that house the tombs of the city’s great thinkers, according to their harsh interpretation of the religion.

The mausoleums were left barely more than heaps of mud, reminders of the brutal rule of the extremists, who imposed an extreme version of Islamic law on this fabled city, forcing women to wear veils, banning music and carrying out executions and public whippings.

The jihadis were driven out after nearly a year by a French military intervention.

The reconstruction of the mausoleums took more than a year and cost about $500,000, UNESCO said as part of a series of projects in Timbuktu being carried out by UNESCO.

“We have kept our promise, this is why we are here to say no to extremism, and yes to peace, development and at the same time pay homage to the Timbuktu community,” said UNESCO’s director-general Irina Bokova, speaking alongside Culture Minister N’diaye Ramatoulaye Diallo.

Niger’s army killed at least 30 Boko Haram fighters as it searched for militants in villages just over the border with Nigeria, security sources said.

The army launched the operation on Thursday, a day after gunmen thought to be from Boko Haram crossed over from Nigeria and killed at least a dozen villagers on the Niger side of the border.

Boko Haram has fought a six-year insurgency to carve out an Islamist state in northeast Nigeria, and continues to carry out cross-border attacks, in the face of a military campaign bolstered by Nigeria’s neighbours Niger, Cameroon and Chad.

“Our defence forces who are engaged in the operation inside Nigeria between the towns of Malam Fatori and Damasak, killed the insurgents on Thursday,” a security source said, requesting not to be named.

Boko Haram has started calling itself the Islamic State’s “West Africa Province” since pledging allegiance in March to the hardline militant group which controls large areas of Syria and Iraq.

Early on Friday, two suicide bombers, an elderly woman and a 10-year-old girl, killed at least nine people in the northeastern Nigerian city of Damaturu as worshippers gathered to mark the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday, a military spokesman said.

Boko Haram has targeted security forces, schools and other Muslim communities who do not share its hardline version of Islam.

Malian troops killed several jihadists near the country’s southern border with Ivory Coast and destroyed the insurgents’ camp in a forest straddling the frontier, a Malian army officer said Thursday.

“We have just destroyed the main military camp of the jihadists in the south, in the Sama forest located on the Ivorian border,” the officer told AFP by telephone, requesting anonymity.

Since last week, Malian army parachutists known as the “Red Berets” and regular troops stationed in the frontier region of Sikasso have been conducting operations against the insurgents, the officer said.

Another Malian security source said “arms, ammunition, motorbikes and strategic documents” were seized from the camp.

A humanitarian source said two Malian soldiers were injured in the operation.

Malian troops on Thursday also pressed on with anti-insurgent operations in the frontier town of Fakola, which was attacked and pillaged on June 28, for which the Islamist Ansar Dine militia claimed responsibility.

Jihadist attacks are normally confined to Mali’s restive northern desert region but areas bordering Mauritania have been targeted since the start of the year, and southern settlements more recently.

The north came under the control of Ansar Dine — which is Arabic for Defenders of Faith — and two other jihadist groups, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, in April 2012.

A move south towards the capital by the extremists, who imposed a brutal version of sharia on inhabitants, prompted Mali’s former colonial master France to intervene in January 2013, pounding their positions in the north.

Their organisational structure smashed, small pockets of armed Islamists managed to remain active, and continue to carry out occasional deadly attacks in the desert.

A drone strike in south-central Somalia, a strategic stronghold of the Islamist group Al-Shabab, destroyed a vehicle belonging to the militants in the early hours of Thursday, residents and officials said.

The car, which was believed to be carrying militants, was hit just outside the town of Bardere, which Shabab captured from government forces in 2009 and has controlled ever since.

Somali forces and the African Union-led peacekeeping force, known as AMISOM, have been advancing on the area over the past three days, officials say.

“Last night, a drone smashed an Al-Shabab car believed to be carrying three officials,” said local elder Nur Farah told Reuters Thursday.

A spokesman from the militants could not immediately be reached for comment. An AMISOM spokesman also could not be reached.

Al-Qaeda-linked Shabab, which wants to topple the Western-backed government and impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia, has been driven out of major strongholds by the African and Somali forces but continues to launch bomb and gun attacks against officials, politicians and others.