DESTRUCTION OF TOMBS AND OTHER ANCIENT SITES SACRED TO SUFIS CONTINUES IN TIMBUKTU, MALI

Human Rights Watch senior researcher Corinne Dufka, who is in Mali, relates that the destruction of tombs and other sites sacred to Sufis continues. And because there is no legitimate government in the country now, there's seemingly little that can be done, Dufka says. About all other African nations are trying to do is "contain and stop foreign Islamists from coming into Mali," she says.

Mali's democratically elected president was toppled in a coup earlier this year. Rebel groups have since moved to grab parts of the nation.

Meanwhile, a "serious humanitarian crisis" is growing, Dufka warns. About 300,000 people have fled to neighboring countries to avoid the fighting between various forces. There's a "looming famine," Dufka says.

Extremists from a group known as Ansar Dine, as NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton said last week on Talk of the Nation, say the tombs in Timbuktu, "these mausoleums of Muslim saints, are idolatrous."

That, of course, is the same excuse the Taliban gave about destroying the towering Buddhas in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, in early 2001.