University of Timbuktu the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a terrorist group, took control of the city in 2012. They were forced out by French and Malian government troops the next year, but not before setting fire to two buildings housing many of the manuscripts, including the Ahmed Baba Institute. Most of the manuscripts had been removed and hidden before the AQIM takeover. University of Timbuktu The University of Timbuktu is a collective term for the teaching associated with three mosques in the city of Timbuktu in what is now Mali: the masajid (mosques) of Sankore, Djinguereber, and Sidi Yahya. It was not a university
Fall of Timbuktu (2012) international intervention to restore Bamako's writ; he was supported by Niger. It was also affirmed at the same forum by Ivory Coast, who had a similar external intervention during the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis, and former imperial overlord France's Francois Hollande who supported an African intervention. The head of the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project at the University of Cape Town, Shamil Jeppie, said that the destruction was akin to that of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. "It's a real loss for people in the town, in the region and on the continent. Timbuktu was a center of Islamic learning, a very significant center