ANTES DE OFENDERSE POR OTRAS COSAS

A finales de Junio de 2012 Barack Obama estuvo en el televisivo “60 Minutes”  celebrando el progreso en Africa del norte donde recientemente los islamistas se apoderaban de Mali y donde gurpos de Al-Qaeda acababan de asesinar a su embajador en Libia.

I do think that over the long term we are more likely to get a Middle East and North Africa that is more peaceful, more prosperous and more aligned with — with our interests.

Now this…
Islamists in Mali just destroyed another ancient Sufi Shrine.

Islamist militants destroy an ancient shrine in Timbuktu on July 1, 2012. Islamists have smashed the mausoleum of Alfa Mobo in Mali. (Picture: AFP )

Reuters  reported:

Heavily armed Islamist fighters in Mali destroyed the tomb of a local Sufi saint near Timbuktu on Saturday, witnesses said, the latest attack on traditional shrines in the rebel-occupied north.

The destruction of the tomb of Almirou Mahamane Assidiki in Goundam came just months after a number of other shrines in the UNESCO-listed city of Timbuktu, 90 km (55 miles) to the south, were reduced to rubble, underscoring the threat to the region’s ancient heritage from the rebels’ extremist ideology.

“Last night they arrived in several vehicles and told the elders that the tomb of Saint Almirou would be destroyed,” Aliou Ahmadou Toure, a resident in Goundam, told Reuters.

Local people tried to protest but were powerless to protect the shrine from men wielding shovels and pick-axes, Toure said.

“Some armed men surrounded the cemetery while a second group, chanting “God is Great”, destroyed the tomb inside.”

A local politician who was also in the town on Saturday confirmed the incident.

It was not immediately clear which of the Islamist groups controlling Mali’s north was involved in the incident but they have previously said they are protecting Islam from idol worship.

Islamists destroyed Saturday another tomb of a Muslim saint in a northern Mali region under their control, witnesses said.

"I saw the Islamists in Goundam destroy the mausoleum of Alfa Mobo, beside the cemetery," local municipal councilor Mamadou Cisse told Agence France Presse.

Another witness, who declined to be identified, said, "They smashed the mausoleum down to the level of the tomb."

He added that "there were 11 of them and someone was filming it."

The witnesses said the Islamists were armed with axes and other tools.

Goundam, 90 kilometers from Timbuktu, is in the hands of the Islamist group Ansar Dine (Defenders of Faith), which with other radicals has been destroying local Muslim shrines since seizing northern Mali in April.

The Islamists say the shrines, venerated by local people and declared part of the world's heritage by the United Nations, are "haram", or forbidden in Islam.

Ansar Dine sparked widespread condemnation when they began destroying the renowned cultural treasures of Timbuktu on July 1, shortly after UNESCO placed them on a list of endangered World Heritage sites.

They destroyed seven of Timbuktu's 16 mausolea of ancient Muslim saints and the sacred door of the 15th-century Sidi Yahya mosque.

On September 15 militants of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) demolished the mausoleum of another saint, Cheik El-Kebir, 330 kilometers north of the city of Gao.

Kebir's tomb is venerated by the Kunta tribe whose members live in Mali, Algeria, Mauritania and Niger.

Tuareg rebels initially seized northern Mali in the chaotic aftermath of a March coup in the capital Bamako, but were themselves quickly swept aside by Islamist extremists who have imposed Sharia law.

Control is now shared by Ansar Dine, MUJAO and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), arousing fears that they intend to use the vast region as a base to spread their creed by violence across neighboring countries.

The UN Human Rights Council on Friday accused them of "violence against women and children, killings, hostage-taking, pillaging, theft, destruction of cultural and religious sites and recruitment of child soldiers".

It also voiced concern over "the impact of the activities of organized transnational crime networks on the situation of human rights in Mali and in other countries in the region".

West Africa's 15-state ECOWAS bloc wants to send troops to wrest northern Mali out of the Islamists' hands but the United Nations is reluctant to give its approval.

¿Pero esto del "islamismo" que tipo de barbarie es? ¿Porqué grita Allah Hu Ackbar?