** FILE ** In this March 18, 2004, file photo Malian soldiers from the 512th Motorised Infantry company complete their training by U.S. Special Forces, top, in the desert near Timbuktu in Mali as part of the U.S. Pan-Sahel Initiative to secure the Sahel region from being used by terrorists. A North African faction, which calls itself Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), is still small and largely isolated, numbering a couple hundred militants based mostly in the vast desert of northern Mali. But there are signs of signs of stepped-up activity in the region. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)
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