A few weeks ago, most British journalists, politicians and foreign policy watchers would have had difficulty accurately positioning Mali on the map or naming its capital city (Bamako).
They would certainly have been unable to bandy around the names of Tuareg and islamist insurgent groups, or speculate on the importance of the trans-Saharan trade in drugs and cigarettes. So what has changed, and what does it mean for international policy in this poorly understood region?
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