A senior mediator at talks in Burkina Faso between the Malian government and the separatist Tuareg MNLA said both sides have agreed “in principle” to allow presidential elections to take place in July and the army to return to Kidal. A 26-page manual found in Timbuktu earlier this year confirms that al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb was training fighters to use man-portable air-defense systems, or MANPADS, and suggests that the group now possesses the SA-7 surface-to-air missile.
