THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The Islamist commander who seized control of Timbuktu this week has imposed a harsh regime of Sharia law on the city and led by example after cutting a man's hand off in public.
Ayad Ag Ghaly, leader of the faction of tribal Tuareg fighters that is allied to al-Qaeda, was reported to have carried out the sentence on an unnamed "vandal" in the heart of the ancient city.
Ousmane Halle, the mayor of Timbuktu, said almost all of the city's 300 Christians had fled after Ag Ghaly announced that Sharia law would be enforced.
He told local radio that women should be covered at all times, warned thieves they would have their hands cut off and adulterers they would be stoned.
His faction, named Ansar al-Din, and its al-Qaeda allies won control of the urban centres of northern Mali after a regional uprising in the wake of a military coup that deposed the country's elected government.
While another faction of the Tuareg rebellion, the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (MNLA) announced a ceasefire yesterday in response to international appeals, the extremists consolidated their grip on key cities. » | Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent | Thursday, April 05, 2012
