Pakistan: Gunmen kill 7 teachers, aid workers

A father of an aid worker, who was killed by gunmen, mourns the death of his daughter at a hospital in Swabi, Pakistan, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. Gunmen in northwest Pakistan killed at least five female teachers and two aid workers on Tuesday in an ambush on a van carrying workers home from their jobs at a community center, officials said. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

A father of an aid worker, who was killed by gunmen, mourns the death of his daughter at a hospital in Swabi, Pakistan, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. Gunmen in northwest Pakistan killed at least five female teachers and two aid workers on Tuesday in an ambush on a van carrying workers home from their jobs at a community center, officials said. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

A Pakistani driver who survived an attack on a van which was targeted by gunmen in Swabi , lies at the Lady Reading Hospital bed after being admitted for treatment, in Peshawar, Pakistan, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. Gunmen killed several female teachers and two other people on Tuesday in an ambush on a van carrying workers home from their jobs at a community center in northwest Pakistan, officials said. The attack was a reminder of the risks faced by educators and aid workers, especially women, in an area where Islamic militants often target women and girls trying to get an education or female teachers working with both genders. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

A Pakistani police officer, left, talks on the radio while cameramen flim the site of a blast in Karachi, Pakistan, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. At least 30 people were injured when a bomb went off in the port city of Karachi just as a large political rally was dispersing. A Senior police officer said the bomb was planted in a motorcycle parked amid a crowd of buses for political workers returning from the rally held by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, the dominant political party in Karachi. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)

A Pakistani policeman stands next to the body of an aid worker, who was killed by gunmen, at a hospital in Swabi, Pakistan, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. Gunmen in northwest Pakistan killed at least five female teachers and two aid workers on Tuesday in an ambush on a van carrying workers home from their jobs at a community center, officials said. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

Pakistani men carry the body of a teacher, who was killed by gunmen, from a hospital for burial in Swabi, Pakistan, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. Gunmen in northwest Pakistan killed five female teachers and two aid workers on Tuesday in an ambush on a van carrying workers home from their jobs at a community center, officials said. (AP Photo/Mohammad Sajjad)

ISLAMABAD (AP) ? Gunmen on motorcycles sprayed a van carrying employees from a community center with bullets Tuesday, killing five female teachers and two aid workers, but sparing a child they took out of the vehicle before opening fire.

The director of the group that the seven worked for says he suspects it may have been the latest in a series of attacks targeting anti-polio efforts in Pakistan. Some militants oppose the vaccination campaigns, accusing health workers of acting as spies for the U.S. and alleging the vaccine is intended to make Muslim children sterile.

Last month, nine people working on an anti-polio vaccination campaign were shot and killed. Four of those shootings were in the northwest where Tuesday's attack took place.

The attack was another reminder of the risks to women educators and aid workers from Islamic militants who oppose their work. It was in the same conservative province where militants shot and seriously wounded 15-year-old Malala Yousufzai, an outspoken young activist for girls' education, in October.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the latest shootings.

The teachers and health workers ? one man and one woman ? were killed in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on their way home from a community center in the town of Swabi where they were employed at a medical clinic and primary school. Their driver was also injured.

Javed Akhtar, the director of Support With Working Solution, said the medical clinic vaccinated children against polio, and many of the NGO's staff had taken part in immunization campaigns.

Militants in the province have blown up schools and killed female educators. They have also kidnapped and killed aid workers, viewing them as promoting a foreign, liberal agenda.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, formerly called the Northwest Frontier province, borders the tribal areas of Pakistan along the frontier with Afghanistan to the west. Militant groups such as the Taliban have used the tribal areas as a stronghold from which to wage war both in Afghanistan and against the Pakistani government. Often that violence has spilled over into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

In 2007, the Taliban led by Maulana Fazlullah took over the scenic Swat Valley, marking the height of their strength there. The Pakistani military later pushed the militant group from the valley, but the Taliban has repeatedly tried to reassert itself.

The injured driver in Swabi told investigators that the gunmen stopped the vehicle and removed a boy ? the son of one of the women ? before indiscriminately opening fire, said police officer Fazal Malik. The woman's husband rushed to the scene after receiving a phone call alerting him to the shooting.

"I left everything and rushed towards the spot. As I reached there I saw their dead bodies were inside the vehicle and he (his son) was sitting with someone," said Zain ul Hadi.

Swabi police chief Abdur Rasheed said most of the women killed were between the ages of 20 and 22. He said four gunmen on two motorcycles fled the scene and have not been apprehended.

The NGO conducts education and health programs and runs the community center in Swabi, Akhtar said. The group has been active in the city since 1992, and started the Ujala Community Welfare Center in 2010, he added. Ujala means "light" in Urdu.

The center is financed by the Pakistani government's Poverty Alleviation Program and a German organization, said Akhtar.

He said the NGO also runs health and education projects in the South Waziristan tribal area, as well as health projects in the cities of Tank and Dera Ismail Khan and the regions of Lower Dir and Upper Kurram. All of those cities and regions are in northwest Pakistan, the area that has been most affected by the ongoing fight with militants opposed to the government.

Aid groups such as Support With Working Solution often play a vital role in many areas of Pakistan where the government has been unable to provide services such as medical clinics or schools.

Many aid groups that also work in the region are already familiar with the persistent threat militant groups pose, but the scale and viciousness of Tuesday's attack worried even veteran campaigners.

Maryam Bibi, who founded an organization called Khwendo Kor, which carries out education and development programs in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the nearby tribal areas, said she and many of her employees live in fear that they will be targeted next.

"I'm really very worried now because our girls go to the field. Our work is in the villages," said Bibi. She said many of the female employees of such organizations are already under pressure from family and a culture that frowns on women working outside the home and mixing with men.

"On top of that, they're shot dead," she said.

In some areas like the northwest, aid groups have had to work to overcome community fears that they are promoting a foreign agenda at odds with local traditions and values.

But many residents in Swabi said the school and medical center provided a vital service to the community, and they mourned those who were killed.

Murad Khan said his daughter was studying at the primary school, which provided free books and uniforms to students. He said many people in the area are worried that the school and clinic will close.

"This school is like a gift for all of us, the poor people of the village," he said. "People in our area are sad."

The NGO director said all projects will be suspended as security measures are reviewed but he vowed that they would resume their work soon.

He said the NGO had not received any threats before the attack.

In the southern city of Karachi, officials said four people were killed when a bomb in a parked motorcycle exploded amid a crowd of buses for political workers returning from the rally held by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. The MQM is the dominant political party in Karachi.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Dr. Saghir Ahmed, the provincial health minister, said that in addition to the dead, 41 people were injured.

__

On the Internet:

http://www.khwendokor.org.pk/

http://www.swwspk.org/index.php

__

Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar and Adil Jawad in Karachi contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-01-Pakistan/id-29aaceb5a3c4427890ec72817c42c9e1

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Web.com Small Business Toolkit: North Social (Facebook App ...

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The views expressed here are the author's alone and not those of Network Solutions or its partners.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 1st, 2013 at 12:01 pm and is filed under Marketing, Resources, Small Business, small business, Social Media, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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Source: http://www.networksolutions.com/smallbusiness/2013/01/web-com-small-business-toolkit-north-social-facebook-app/

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Food & Drink | Chefs we love to hate: Antony Worrall Thompson

One chef who's frankly had one too many blunders in his career for our liking is Antony Worrall Thompson, so that's why he's this week's Celebrity Chef we love to hate.

The pint-sized chef Antony Worrall Thompson, sometimes referred to as AWT or ?Wozza?, first made it big after appearing on the TV show Ready Steady Cook. However, over the past few years Wozza?s name has been cropping up for all the wrong reasons.

The worst of which was back in 2008 when he recommended in the August edition of Healthy and Organic Living magazine that henbane would make a tasty edition to a light salad. There is a slight problem there, though. The weed known as henbane is actually poisonous and if it?s consumed in large doses it can be fatal to humans. Not a good move Wozza?

Wozza would eventually come out and say, "I was thinking of a wild plant with a similar name, Fat Hen, not this herb. It's a bit embarrassing, but there have been no reports of any casualties. Please do pass on my apologies."

More recently, Antony hit the headlines after he was found to have shoplifted some ?low value? items (wine and cheese) from a Tesco in London on five occasions. This is from a man who has written endless cookbooks, has been on more cooking shows than he?s had hot dinners and who owns a couple of restaurants ? so safe to say he?s not shy of a few quid.

One of Thompson?s deserts, the Snickers Pie, was also nominated as one of the most unhealthy dessert recipes EVER, back in 2006. Why? Because it was estimated that one slice contained more than 1,250 calories.

While we wouldn?t trust Thompson as far as we could throw his calorie-laden cake we do enjoy the fact that he?s one of the more ?real? reality TV celebrity chefs. He doesn?t seem to care what other people think of him and he?s not afraid to come clean and say sorry for his actions.

Still, we?d rather order in from Just-Eat.ie than attempt to make his heart attack educing Snickers Pie.

Take the hassle out of being the chef tonight - remember - Don't Cook,?JUST EAT

Source: http://www.joe.ie/joe-life/food-drink/chefs-we-love-to-hate-antony-worrall-thompson-0031971-1

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Video: Hillary Clinton hospitalized with blood clot (cbsnews)

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Study: 75 Percent Of The World?s Heads Of State Are Now On Twitter

You know how some naysayers still like to dismiss Twitter as nothing more than a time wasting website where people talk about the sandwich they're eating? Here's another rebuttal for them. A new survey from the Digital Policy Council (DPC) shows that 75 percent of the world's heads of state have a presence on Twitter. The DPC's annual study evaluates a total of 164 countries, and found this year that 123 of them have a head of state that is on Twitter, either with a personal handle or an official government one.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/6pr160zfcDo/

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AP IMPACT: Al-Qaida carves out own country in Mali

FILE - In this Sept. 16, 2012 file photo, fighters from Islamist group Ansar Dine leave after performing a public amputation, severing the hand of a young man found guilty of stealing rice, in Timbuktu, Mali. In recent months, al-Qaida and its allies have taken advantage of political instability within Mali to push out of their hiding place and into the towns, taking over an enormous territory which they are using to stock arms, train forces and prepare for global jihad. And as 2012 draws to a close and the world hesitates, delaying a military intervention, the extremists who seized control of the area earlier this year are preparing for a war they boast will be worse than the decade-old struggle in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this Sept. 16, 2012 file photo, fighters from Islamist group Ansar Dine leave after performing a public amputation, severing the hand of a young man found guilty of stealing rice, in Timbuktu, Mali. In recent months, al-Qaida and its allies have taken advantage of political instability within Mali to push out of their hiding place and into the towns, taking over an enormous territory which they are using to stock arms, train forces and prepare for global jihad. And as 2012 draws to a close and the world hesitates, delaying a military intervention, the extremists who seized control of the area earlier this year are preparing for a war they boast will be worse than the decade-old struggle in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this Aug. 31, 2012 file photo, fighters from Islamist group Ansar Dine stand guard in Timbuktu, Mali, as they prepare to publicly lash a member of the Islamic Police found guilty of adultery. In recent months, al-Qaida and its allies have taken advantage of political instability within Mali to push out of their hiding place and into the towns, taking over an enormous territory which they are using to stock arms, train forces and prepare for global jihad. And as 2012 draws to a close and the world hesitates, delaying a military intervention, the extremists who seized control of the area earlier this year are preparing for a war they boast will be worse than the decade-old struggle in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/File)

FILE - In this April 24, 2012 file photo, fighters from Islamist group Ansar Dine stand guard during a hostage handover in the desert outside Timbuktu, Mali. In recent months, al-Qaida and its allies have taken advantage of political instability within Mali to push out of their hiding place and into the towns, taking over an enormous territory which they are using to stock arms, train forces and prepare for global jihad. And as 2012 draws to a close and the world hesitates, delaying a military intervention, the extremists who seized control of the area earlier this year are preparing for a war they boast will be worse than the decade-old struggle in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/File)

Map locates Mali and key sites in northern Mali

In this Oct. 19, 2012 photo, men pray beside the tombs of locally venerated Islamic saints, whose mausoleums were destroyed by Islamist group Ansar Dine, in Timbuktu, Mali. In recent months, al-Qaida and its allies have taken advantage of political instability within Mali to push out of their hiding place and into the towns, taking over an enormous territory which they are using to stock arms, train forces and prepare for global jihad. And as 2012 draws to a close and the world hesitates, delaying a military intervention, the extremists who seized control of the area earlier this year are preparing for a war they boast will be worse than the decade-old struggle in Afghanistan. (AP Photo)

MOPTI, Mali (AP) ? Deep inside caves, in remote desert bases, in the escarpments and cliff faces of northern Mali, Islamic fighters are burrowing into the earth, erecting a formidable set of defenses to protect what has essentially become al-Qaida's new country.

They have used the bulldozers, earth movers and Caterpillar machines left behind by fleeing construction crews to dig what residents and local officials describe as an elaborate network of tunnels, trenches, shafts and ramparts. In just one case, inside a cave large enough to drive trucks into, they have stored up to 100 drums of gasoline, guaranteeing their fuel supply in the face of a foreign intervention, according to experts.

Northern Mali is now the biggest territory held by al-Qaida and its allies. And as the world hesitates, delaying a military intervention, the extremists who seized control of the area earlier this year are preparing for a war they boast will be worse than the decade-old struggle in Afghanistan.

"Al-Qaida never owned Afghanistan," said former United Nations diplomat Robert Fowler, a Canadian kidnapped and held for 130 days by al-Qaida's local chapter, whose fighters now control the main cities in the north. "They do own northern Mali."

Al-Qaida's affiliate in Africa has been a shadowy presence for years in the forests and deserts of Mali, a country hobbled by poverty and a relentless cycle of hunger. In recent months, the terror syndicate and its allies have taken advantage of political instability within the country to push out of their hiding place and into the towns, taking over an enormous territory which they are using to stock arms, train forces and prepare for global jihad.

The catalyst for the Islamic fighters was a military coup nine months ago that transformed Mali from a once-stable nation to the failed state it is today. On March 21, disgruntled soldiers invaded the presidential palace. The fall of the nation's democratically elected government at the hands of junior officers destroyed the military's command-and-control structure, creating the vacuum which allowed a mix of rebel groups to move in.

With no clear instructions from their higher-ups, the humiliated soldiers left to defend those towns tore off their uniforms, piled into trucks and beat a retreat as far as Mopti, roughly in the center of Mali. They abandoned everything north of this town to the advancing rebels, handing them an area that stretches over more than 620,000 square kilometers (240,000 square miles). It's a territory larger than Texas or France ? and it's almost exactly the size of Afghanistan.

Turbaned fighters now control all the major towns in the north, carrying out amputations in public squares like the Taliban did. Just as in Afghanistan, they are flogging women for not covering up. Since taking control of Timbuktu, they have destroyed seven of the 16 mausoleums listed as world heritage sites.

The area under their rule is mostly desert and sparsely populated, but analysts say that due to its size and the hostile nature of the terrain, rooting out the extremists here could prove even more difficult than it did in Afghanistan. Mali's former president has acknowledged, diplomatic cables show, that the country cannot patrol a frontier twice the length of the border between the United States and Mexico.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, known as AQIM, operates not just in Mali, but in a corridor along much of the northern Sahel. This 7,000-kilometer (4,300-mile) long ribbon of land runs across the widest part of Africa, and includes sections of Mauritania, Niger, Algeria, Libya, Burkina Faso and Chad.

"One could come up with a conceivable containment strategy for the Swat Valley," said Africa expert Peter Pham, an adviser to the U.S. military's African command center, referring to the region of Pakistan where the Pakistan Taliban have been based. "There's no containment strategy for the Sahel, which runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea."

Earlier this year, the 15 nations in West Africa, including Mali, agreed on a proposal for the military to take back the north, and sought backing from the United Nations. Earlier this month, the Security Council authorized the intervention but imposed certain conditions, including training Mali's military, which is accused of serious human rights abuses since the coup. Diplomats say the intervention will likely not happen before September of 2013.

In the meantime, the Islamists are getting ready, according to elected officials and residents in Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao, including a day laborer hired by al-Qaida's local chapter to clear rocks and debris for one of their defenses. They spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for their safety at the hands of the Islamists, who have previously accused those who speak to reporters of espionage.

The al-Qaida affiliate, which became part of the terror network in 2006, is one of three Islamist groups in northern Mali. The others are the Movement for the Unity and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO, based in Gao, and Ansar Dine, based in Kidal. Analysts agree that there is considerable overlap between the groups, and that all three can be considered sympathizers, even extensions, of al-Qaida.

The Islamic fighters have stolen equipment from construction companies, including more than $11 million worth from a French company called SOGEA-SATOM, according to Elie Arama, who works with the European Development Fund. The company had been contracted to build a European Union-financed highway in the north between Timbuktu and the village of Goma Coura. An employee of SOGEA-SATOM in Bamako declined to comment.

The official from Kidal said his constituents have reported seeing Islamic fighters with construction equipment riding in convoys behind 4-by-4 trucks draped with their signature black flag. His contacts among the fighters, including friends from secondary school, have told him they have created two bases, around 200 to 300 kilometers (120 and 180 miles) north of Kidal, in the austere, rocky desert.

The first base is occupied by al-Qaida's local fighters in the hills of Teghergharte, a region the official compared to Afghanistan's Tora Bora.

"The Islamists have dug tunnels, made roads, they've brought in generators, and solar panels in order to have electricity," he said. "They live inside the rocks."

Still further north, near Boghassa, is the second base, created by fighters from Ansar Dine. They too have used seized explosives, bulldozers and sledgehammers to make passages in the hills, he said.

In addition to creating defenses, the fighters are amassing supplies, experts said. A local who was taken by Islamists into a cave in the region of Kidal described an enormous room, where several cars were parked. Along the walls, he counted up to 100 barrels of gasoline, according to the man's testimony to New York-based Human Rights Watch.

In Timbuktu, the fighters are becoming more entrenched with each passing day, warned Mayor Ousmane Halle. Earlier in the year, he said, the Islamists left his city in a hurry after France called for an imminent military intervention. They returned when the U.N. released a report arguing for a more cautious approach.

"At first you could see that they were anxious," said Halle by telephone. "The more the date is pushed back, the more reinforcements they are able to get, the more prepared they become."

In the regional capital of Gao, a young man told The Associated Press that he and several others were offered 10,000 francs a day by al-Qaida's local commanders (around $20), a rate several times the normal wage, to clear rocks and debris, and dig trenches. The youth said he saw Caterpillars and earth movers inside an Islamist camp at a former Malian military base 7 kilometers (4 miles) from Gao.

The fighters are piling mountains of sand from the ground along the dirt roads to force cars onto the pavement, where they have checkpoints everywhere, he said. In addition, they are modifying their all-terrain vehicles to mount them with arms.

"On the backs of their cars, it looks like they are mounting pipes," he said, describing a shape he thinks might be a rocket or missile launcher. "They are preparing themselves. Everyone is scared."

A university student from Gao confirmed seeing the modified cars. He said he also saw deep holes dug on the sides of the highway, possibly to give protection to fighters shooting at cars, along with cement barriers with small holes for guns.

In Gao, residents routinely see Moktar Belmoktar, the one-eyed emir of the al-Qaida-linked cell that grabbed Fowler in 2008. Belmoktar, a native Algerian, traveled to Afghanistan in the 1980s and trained in Osama bin Laden's camp in Jalalabad, according to research by the Jamestown Foundation. His lieutenant Oumar Ould Hamaha, whom Fowler identified as one of his captors, brushed off questions about the tunnels and caves but said the fighters are prepared.

"We consider this land our land. It's an Islamic territory," he said, reached by telephone in an undisclosed location. "Right now our field of operation is Mali. If they bomb us, we are going to hit back everywhere."

He added that the threat of military intervention has helped recruit new fighters, including from Western countries.

In December, two U.S. citizens from Alabama were arrested on terrorism charges, accused of planning to fly to Morocco and travel by land to Mali to wage jihad, or holy war. Two French nationals have also been detained on suspicion of trying to travel to northern Mali to join the Islamists. Hamaha himself said he spent a month in France preaching his fundamentalist version of Islam in Parisian mosques after receiving a visa for all European Union countries in 2001.

Hamaha indicated the Islamists have inherited stores of Russian-made arms from former Malian army bases, as well as from the arsenal of toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, a claim that military experts have confirmed.

Those weapons include the SA-7 and SA-2 surface-to-air missiles, according to Hamaha, which can shoot down aircrafts. His claim could not be verified, but Rudolph Atallah, the former counterterrorism director for Africa in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said it makes sense.

"Gadhafi bought everything under the sun," said Atallah, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, who has traveled extensively to Mali on defense missions. "His weapons depots were packed with all kinds of stuff, so it's plausible that AQIM now has surface-to-air missiles."

Depending on the model, these missiles can range far enough to bring down planes used by ill-equipped African air forces, although not those used by U.S. and other Western forces, he said. There is significant disagreement in the international community on whether Western countries with their better equipment will carry out the planned bombardments, which could significantly affect the outcome.

Another factor in the success of a military intervention would be the reaction of the people, who, unlike in Afghanistan, have little history of extremism. Malians have long practiced a moderate form of Islam, where women do not wear burqas and few practice the strict form of the religion.

The Islamists' recent advances draw on al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb's near decade of experience in Mali's northern desert, where Fowler and his fellow U.N. colleague were held captive for four months in 2008, an experience he recounts in his recent book, "A Season in Hell."

Originally from Algeria, the fighters fled across the border into Mali in 2003, after kidnapping 32 European tourists. Over the next decade, they used the country's vast northern desert to hold French, Spanish, Swiss, German, British, Austrian, Italian and Canadian hostages, raising an estimated $89 million in ransom payments, according to Stratfor, a global intelligence company.

During this time, they also established relationships with local clans, nurturing the ties that now protect them. Several commanders have taken local wives, and Hamaha, whose family is from Kidal, confirmed that Belmoktar is married to his niece.

Fowler described being driven for days by jihadists who knew Mali's featureless terrain by heart, navigating valleys of identical dunes with nothing more than the direction of the sun as their map. He saw them drive up to a thorn tree in the middle of nowhere to find barrels of diesel fuel. Elsewhere, he saw them dig a pit in the sand and bury a bag of boots, marking the spot on a GPS for future use.

In his four-month-long captivity, Fowler never saw his captors refill at a gas station, or shop in a market. Yet they never ran out of gas. And although their diet was meager, they never ran out of food, a testament to the extensive supply network which they set up and are now refining and expanding.

Among the many challenges an invading army will face is the inhospitable terrain, Fowler said, which is so hot that at times "it was difficult to draw breath." A cable published by WikiLeaks from the U.S. Embassy in Bamako described how even the Malian troops deployed in the north before the coup could only work from 4 a.m. to 10 a.m., and spent the sunlight hours in the shade of their vehicles.

Yet Fowler said he saw al-Qaida fighters chant Quranic verses under the Sahara sun for hours, just one sign of their deep, ideological commitment.

"I have never seen a more focused group of young men," said Fowler, who now lives in Ottawa, Canada. "No one is sneaking off for R&R. They have left their wives and children behind. They believe they are on their way to paradise."

___

Associated Press writer Baba Ahmed contributed to this report from Bamako and Mopti, Mali.

___

Rukmini Callimachi can be reached at www.twitter.com/rcallimachi

Baba Ahmed can be reached at www.twitter.com/Babahmed1

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2012-12-31-Mali-Al-Qaida's%20Country/id-9a8e30ab631c491688fac4c52db390d7

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Video: A Deal Within Reach?

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