Al Qaeda Threatens Timbuktu Library; Expect No Help from the American Library Association

Al Qaeda-linked terrorists have destroyed a United Nations World Heritage site in Timbuktu, Mali, and are threatening to destroy a library:  "Elderly men were keeping watch Saturday over Timbuktu's main library after Islamists burned a tomb listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site."

Religious leader Baba Cheick Sekou said the occupying rebel groups have no respect for Timbuktu's religious and historic importance. 

Sekou said he feared for the protection of the prestigious Koranic Sankore University and ancient manuscripts that are kept there, as well as other tombs and mosques of historic significance. 

"All Muslims know the tomb is a holy place," he said.  "It's not something you attack and destroy.  It's anti-Islamic.  People in the community are angry."

Source:  "Rebels Burn Timbuktu Tomb Listed as U.N. World Heritage Site," by CNN Wire Staff, WPLG Local 10, 5 May 2012.  See also, "Islamic Extremists Desecrate Muslim Saint's Timbuktu Tomb," by Agence France-Presse, The Raw Story, 5 May 2012:  "It was also a renowned centre of Islamic scholarship, with manuscripts written in Arabic and Fulani by scholars of the ancient Mali empire, covering a range of subjects including Islam, history, astronomy, music, botany, genealogy and anatomy."

Further, it is possible this is in part due to United States policy that has unleashed intolerance throughout the Ummah:  "After the ouster of Moammar Gadhafi, armed Tuaregs who had been fighting in Libya streamed back across the border into Mali."  "The ancient city in Mali was captured by at least two separatist Tuareg rebel groups—one of which is Ansar Dine"—"a militant group that seeks to impose strict Sharia law" and "who have been linked to al Qaeda."


Nobody should look for help from the American Library Association [ALA] (that otherwise takes action when terrorist libraries are claimed by the terrorists to be threatened, see "Librarians for Terror," by Lee Kaplan, FrontPage Magazine, 17 Aug 2004):

• The ALA expressed dismay when a Florida librarian reported the presence of an actual 9/11 terrorist in her library, one of the nineteen, since, she apparently believed, the librarian violated his library patron privacy rights.  
• The ALA has responded to Islamist groups seeking to spread Sharia in the United States by banning/censoring from ALA activities Robert Spencer of Jihad Watch.
• The ALA opposed legislation by Senator Bond to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act [FISA] to facilitate surveillance of overseas communications that is essential to stopping terrorist attacks.
• The ALA opposed radicalization hearings on Capitol Hill.
• See, generally, Librarians for Fairness at LibrariansForFairness.org.

Mind you, this is a "library" association.  The "American" Library Association.  Right?  One should "Know the ALA."


NOTE ADDED EVEN DATE:

This story has been picked up by other sources, including Education News, Editor and Chief Jimmy Kilpatrick:

• "Al Qaeda Threatens Timbuktu Library; Expect No Help from the American Library Association," by Editor's Pick, Society, Education News, 6 May 2012:

Follow @SafeLibraries