1
Mali is seeking to break a decades-long cycle of Tuareg uprisings.
2
A 2012 armed Tuareg uprising triggered a military coup in the capital Bamako in the south.
3
Mali has struggled to regain stability since a Tuareg uprising in 2012 that was hijacked by Islamist militants.
4
Islamist fighters seized control of Mali's north in 2012, taking advantage of a Tuareg uprising and a military coup in Bamako.
5
The latest Tuareg uprising in Mali and neighbouring Niger follow similar rebellions in the 1960s and 1990s.
6
The March 2012 coup, triggered by the government's failure to tackle a Tuareg uprising, ushered in an Islamist occupation of northern Mali.
7
A Tuareg uprising in the early 1990s and subsequent Malian state crackdown led many to flee their homes and live in neighboring states.
8
French forces intervened in 2013 to drive a Tuareg uprising a year earlier, and some 4,000 French troops remain there.
9
But it was excluded from a peace deal last month between Mali's government and northern armed groups that aimed to end decades of Tuareg uprisings.
10
French forces intervened in 2013 to drive back Islamist fighters who had hijacked a Tuareg uprising in 2012 to take over the desert north.