Mali

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Young fighters, including 13-year-old Abdullahi (right) and 14-year-old Hamadi (second right), display their Quranic studies notes for a journalist as their Islamist commanders watch in Douentza, Mali, on Sept. 27, 2012. (Associated Press)

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Fighters from Islamist group Ansar Dine stand guard during a hostage handover in the desert outside Timbuktu, Mali. Allied Islamist groups Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, or MUJAO, are applying strict Shariah justice across the northern half of Mali, which fell to the al-Qaeda-linked rebels. (Associated Press)

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**FILE** Malian troops and soldiers from other African countries train with U.S. Special Forces in the Sahara Desert near the town of Gao in northeastern Mali in May 2010. (Associated Press)

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**FILE** Coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo (right) speaks March 29, 2012, during a walkabout at the airport in Bamako, Mali. (Associated Press)

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**FILE** People wait for coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo to make an appearance March 28, 2012, at the office of the Prime Minister in Bamako, Mali, as thousands rallied in a show of support for the recent military coup. (Associated Press)

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Coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo speaks at junta headquarters in Kati, on the outskirts of Bamako, Mali, on Tuesday. (Associated Press)

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** FILE ** Malian soldiers from the 512th Motorized Infantry Company complete their training by U.S. Special Forces (top) in the desert near Timbuktu in Mali in March 2004 as part of the U.S. Pan-Sahel Initiative to secure the Sahel region from being used by terrorists. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

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Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo has led a coup in Mali that has the West African economic bloc, ECOWAS, threatening military force if he doesn't step down. (Associated Press)

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Demonstrators march along a central street in Bamako, Mali, on Wednesday, March 28, 2012, as thousands rallied in a show of support for the recent military coup. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

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ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS People in Mali wait outside a travel agency Tuesday to buy tickets. The country's airport reopened almost a week after a military coup. The body representing nations in western Africa suspended Mali and put a peacekeeping force on standby.

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Soldiers stand guard Tuesday outside the headquarters of coup leader Capt. Amadou Haya Sanogo at a military base near Bamako, Mali. Already, the U.S., the European Union and France have cut off aid. Additional sanctions from the region would be a further blow to the junta.

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Soldiers gather in Bamako, Mali, on Thursday at an entrance to the compound containing government ministries after taking power in a coup, Drunken soldiers looted Mali's presidential palace hours after they declared a coup on Thursday, suspending the constitution and dissolving the institutions of one of the few established democracies in this troubled corner of Africa. (Associated Press)

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Civilians walk past tires set afire in support of mutinying soldiers in Bamako, Mali, on Wednesday, March 21, 2012. (AP Photo/Harouna Traore)

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Supporters of Col. Moammar Gadhafi in Bamako, Mali, rally in March in support of the longtime Libyan leader, whose regime was under siege by rebels at the time. Many in Mali mourned the Oct. 20 death of Gadhafi, who was captured and killed by the rebels, because Mali was one of many African nations on which he had lavished some of Libya's oil wealth. (Associated Press)

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** FILE ** A U.S. Special Forces soldier trains troops from Senegal in combat techniques in Kati, Mali, during a joint training exercise with units from several African armies in the Sahara Desert in June 2010. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb wants to put its footprint on the Arab Spring now that violence is fueling the uprisings. (AP Photo/Alfred de Montesquiou, File)

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People look on as security guards clean up personal belongings and debris following a deadly stampede at Modibo Keita Stadium in Bamako, Mali, Monday, Feb. 21, 2011. At least 36 people were killed in the stampede Monday when a crowd surged against a metal barrier after a Muslim ceremony, Mali's minister of interior security and civil protection said. (AP Photo/Martin Vogl)