Holidays in Timbuctou, by Alfred N.Muggins (rogue reporter!)

25/9/23

Alfred had realized in this last week or so that his long hoped for, and planned, Holiday In Timbuctou would definitely not be taking place now, certainly not for the foreseeable future. Apparently now Islamic terrorists or extremists, apparently affiliated to the erstwhile Al Qaeda (or was it the even more heinous IslamicState, which should have been completely defunct by now?) had raised its (or their?) ugly heads once more and were currently causing much havoc in Mali, and were likely to take over the ancient city and trading centre once again in the near future.

Apparently the (not too intelligent?) Malian military who had control of the state after their relatively recent coup had already sent their protectors, the French military, packing, due to concerns about neo and pre colonialism, and were in the process of getting the not to be trusted United Nations peacekeepers and advisors out too.

Instead they were apparently putting their trust in the hands of a mercenary group from Russia, kindly lent (or paid for?) by the generous Russians (who were of course currently up to their eyeballs in blood sweat and tears in doing all the Kremlin’s fighting for them in their lost province of Ukraine (their old colonial possession which had apparently gained far too much independence from their erstwhile Kremlin overlords and most specifically from that canny wolf in sheep’s clothing Mr perfectly reasonable Vladimir ‘tarzanovsky’ Putin).

(Apparently Mr perfectly reasonable Putin had recently had the erstwhile boss of the mercenary group (which was curiously named after a favourite German Composer (Wagner!). Alfred had long wondered why, as Russians, they had not decided to use the name of one of their long list of extremely good Russian composers instead?) blown up in an aeroplane, because the ex boss Pregozhin had apparently been trying to advise him how to run his military,and how to wage his war more effectively! Which Mr perfectly reasonable Putin had not liked apparently.)

Anyway the new leaders of Mali had entrusted their nation’s protection from the Islamic extremist terrorists to this organization. Presumably they had been impressed by the Wagner Group and Russia’s great success in flattening rebel and Islamic Extremist groups in Syria for its weak and not very popular leader Assad, and his clan, in which they had managed to allow the official Assad government to cling on to power for at least another ten years or so, and encouraged large numbers of its citizens to leave their erstwhile homeland permanently, as refugees!