海角大神

In Timbuktu, rains out of season are a portent of hope. Rain fell unexpectedly here today in a gentle spatter on streets and houses, and on the French and Malian soldiers who drove through town and the crowds who turned out to applaud them.

鈥淭oday, to see this, I feel joy, joy,鈥� says Adaraoui Maiga, Timbuktu鈥檚 acting mayor, who joined the procession. For the first time in nearly a year, he wore an official sash striped green, yellow, and red after the Malian flag.

Timbuktu鈥檚 liberation, following that of the city of Goa, concludes a one-two combination blow struck by French and Malian forces over the weekend against Islamist militants who overran northern Mali last year in the wake of an ethnic Tuareg rebellion.

For French commanders and Mali鈥檚 interim government, hard work still lies ahead. Islamist fighters are scattered, but may launch a guerrilla war. Meanwhile, there are schools to re-open, electricity and phone networks to restore, and state administration to rebuild.

But today at least, in Timbuktu, people are celebrating. French and Malian flags fly in union, and cries of 鈥淰ive la France!鈥� and 鈥淰ive Mali!鈥� ring in the streets.

The procession 鈥� part victory-lap, part signal to locals that liberation is real 鈥� meandered through the streets. Malian soldiers hopped down from their gun-trucks to mingle; the French waved from atop armored personnel carriers.

鈥淚鈥檓 so happy today that France is here!鈥� says Moussa Maiga, a middle-aged man watching soldiers drive by. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 want them to leave.鈥�

For now Mr. Maiga鈥檚 wish will come true. France wants to hand off to Malian and other West African troops as soon as possible, but has also pledged to stay in Mali until the country is stable.

鈥淭his rain, at this time, gives me hope that things will be put back in order,鈥� says Inamoi Kunta, a middle-aged woman who watched troops pass from beneath a cane awning. 鈥淲e were convinced the Islamists would be punished for all they made us suffer.鈥�

Opposite her stands the abandoned headquarters of the "Commission for Ordering the Virtuous and Forbidding the Damnable" - the now-defunct morality police established here by the radicals, in the name of Islam.聽

Mrs. Kunta ran afoul of them four months ago when she went to her door unveiled for a breath of air. A commission member pounced. To escape a beating with his rifle, Kunta let him take a scissors to a so-called grigri in her hair 鈥� a protective talisman or charm that Islamists deemed heretical.

Kunta got off lightly. Across the north, ad-hoc Islamist courts ordered the beating of cigarette smokers, the stoning of alleged adulterers, and the amputation of hands from those accused of stealing, according to human rights reports.聽

Timbuktu suffered a different kind of violence last summer when Islamists wrecked the graves of Sufi leaders that were venerated as access points to God 鈥撀燼 practice in some forms of Islamic mysticism that deeply conservative Muslims often call blasphemous.

Rain fell today on Timbuktu's Djingareyber cemetery, fell on graves and mausoleums busted up in the past year. As Kunta sees it, the Islamists invited downfall by daring offend 鈥渢hose who have always brought us good.鈥�

Brutality, bullying, and a certain joylessness about the rebels' governing style, almost surely played a role, too. The quick collapse by Islamists as French and Malian forces bore down on the town suggests a lack of popular support.

鈥淭his is the first cigarette I鈥檝e smoked in public in eight months,鈥� says Ciss茅 Al Mansour, a Timbuktu cook left jobless by crisis, taking a drag at a roadside butcher stall. Beside him, music was thumping from a stereo.

鈥淯nder the Islamists, you could never see this 鈥� people listening to music together in the open air,鈥� he says.

Meanwhile, a butcher threw hanks of meat on the grill, and a crowd gathered. It was only a matter of time 鈥� and it was a very short time 鈥� before the girls were dancing.