Next month, my book will be published in the U.S. I hope people are interested in the subject - at the moment, the election is dominating all the chatter, but maybe once that's over people will be keen to see what's going on in the rest of the world. There's certainly a lot of reasons why Americans should be paying attention to North Africa. The failure to plan for the aftermath of the 2011 Libyan offensive has been cited by President Obama as the 'worst mistake' of his presidency; it's an offensive in which Hillary Clinton was heavily involved; whilst Donald Trump has bragged about doing business with Colonel Gaddafi. I've written about the Libyan/North African connection, in terms of the US election, in an opinion piece for The Daily Beast, which you can read here.

I was in Mali when the fallout from Gaddafi's demise started percolating across the region. I remember my nomad guide pointing out the plush tents that were starting to appear. 'There are too many strangers in the desert,' he told me. Little did I know just how catastrophic the presence of these strangers would become - Mali is still struggling to deal with the impact of their insurgency. On the other hand, the conflict also raised longstanding issues that need to be dealt with, in terms of development and investment in Northern Mali and the way its more 'remote' communities are treated by the government in Bamako. It's a knotty matrix of issues, and looks like it will take many years to untangle.

As far as the US election is concerned, whoever wins will have a massive responsibility to have a positive impact in North Africa, just as in the Middle East. Gains against Islamic State notwithstanding, there's no point celebrating until we know where the jihadists have gone - that goes for Libya, as much as Iraq. As for Syria, the task is to release one of the most fascinating, diverse countries in the Middle East from the proxy wars that have been grafted onto its own formidable internal tensions. It's hard, looking at the world leaders currently available, to have a lot of hope. 

On September 27th, judgment was passed on Ahmed al-Faqi al-Mahdi. He was sentenced to nine years in prison for his role in the destruction of nine mausoleums and a mosque door in Timbuktu. I wrote about this in an article for the BBC which you can read here. There are several unanswered issues relating to the trial. Firstly, why has Al-Mahdi not been charged with crimes of rape and violence (which he is alleged to have committed)? Secondly, why have more senior jihadists not been brought to justice? The Al-Mahdi trial represents a rare triumph for the International Criminal Court, and a legal template against which the vandals of Nineveh, Palmyra and many other places in the Middle East may eventually be judged; but as long as the more powerful jihadists remain at large, it's hard to believe justice has fully been served.

Talking to contacts and friends in Timbuktu around the time of Al-Mahdi's trial, I was surprised by the clemency many expressed. 'People know Al-Mahdi has asked for forgiveness,' said one. 'He wasn't the leader of Ansar ad-Dine,' said another. 'It is the leaders who are the real responsible ones.'

One reason for the lenient atmosphere is that many of the monuments destroyed by al-Mahdi and his cohorts have been restored. In an uplifting project, under the auspices of UNESCO, local masons have brought back several of Timbuktu's most beloved mausoleums, using traditional banco (a mixture of straw and clay) along with rice stalks and limestone. In order to make sure the reconstructed shrines matched the originals as closely as possible, they consulted Timbuktu's elders, as well as old photographs and descriptions of the ruined shrines. This is a big deal, in a culture where it is common to pray at the tombs of the dead, to ask for spiritual guidance, and to leave votive offerings. 'It is the coming back of people's identity,' said Abdramane, a friend from Northern Mali, who was visiting Timbuktu. Oumar, a student in Timbuktu, has sent me photos of some of the reconstructed shrines, including the official ceremony for the reinstallation of the sacred door of the Sidi Yahia Mosque (which, according to tradition, can only be opened at the end of days - you can see the pictures above and below this post). Serendipitously, this took place just a few days before Al-Mahdi's verdict. Considering all the bad news that tends to crackle out of Mali, it's heartening to see this rare example of really good news. Maybe one day Al-Mahdi himself will visit, and ask for atonement at the shrines he so recklessly destroyed...