Second Battle of Timbuktu Second Battle of Timbuktu The Battle of Timbuktu was a phase of the Northern Mali conflict, taking place in late March 2013, in which two Islamist attacks targeted the Malian army in Timbuktu. With help from the French, both attacks were prevented from capturing any significant sites in the city. On the night of March 20, French and Malian forces repelled two groups of Islamist militants - one attempting to infiltrate Timbuktu regional airport and the other attempting to forcibly enter the city by car. A few hours after the fighting began, a suicide bomber approached the airport in a
Timbuktu built of earth". Now opened up, many travellers acknowledged the unfitting description of an "African El Dorado". This development shifted the city's reputation – from being fabled because of its gold to fabled because of its location and mystery: Being used in this sense since at least 1863, English dictionaries now cite Timbuktu as a metaphor for any faraway place. In "Scales of Gold" (1991), the fourth book in Dorothy Dunnett’s House of Niccolo series, key characters go to Africa in 1464-1467 searching for gold. They find in Timbuktu intellectual and spiritual wealth that transforms them. In the original 1932