It is a practiced soliloquy but a logical point of view for a man whose family controls Timbuktu's largest private library, with some 22,000 manuscripts dating back to the 11th century and volumes ...

including The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu: And Their Race to Save the World's Most Precious Manuscripts and The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird.

Thursday's attack on Timbuktu, a seat of Islamic learning home to tens of thousands of ancient manuscripts, caused panic among residents, local media report. The city's inhabitants have endured ...