At least two were killed when three car bombs exploded near interior ministry and security buildings in the Libya's capital Tripoli on Aug. 19—the first lethal attack of its kind since Moammar Qaddafi's fall last year. The first bomb blew up near the interior ministry's administrative offices in Tripoli but caused no casualties.

A general strike was held Aug. 14 in Tunisia's Sidi Bouzid region to demand the release of detainees and resignation of the governor, the regional head of the National Guard, and the public prosecutor. The strike, called by the UGTT trade union federation, was widely observed, with all public and private businesses shut except the electric company. The detainees had been arrested in protests over the past weeks demanding development of the marginalized region, where water and power cuts are common. Sidi Bouzid is considered the birthplace of the Arab Spring; last year's Tunisian uprising was sparked when a street vendor in the city torched himself in December 2010 in protest over his precarious livelihood. (Tunis Afrique Presse via AllAfrica, AFP, Aug. 14)

Mali's military said Aug. 14 that troops from the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) could assist in a campaign to take back the country's north from Islamist rebels, but would not be allowed in the capital, Bamako. "There is no question of soldiers from ECOWAS bloc in Bamako but [they could send] some to the North. We could have 600-800 ECOWAS troops in support of ours," said chief of staff Col. Ibrahima Dahirou Dembele. (Reuters, Aug. 14) One week earlier, Iyad Ag Ghali—leader of Ansar Dine, one of the Islamist groups in control of the north—met with Burkina Faso's foreign minister, Djibril Bassole, in the northern town of Kidal, and said he is open to mediation efforts to reunite the country. "We are going to work together to find peace,’" Ag Ghali told reporters at Kidal airport.

Hundreds of pastoralists in the Mopti region of central Mali are trapped between floodplains to the south and armed Islamist rebels to the north. The nomadic herders, mostly of the Peulh (Fulani) ethnicity, fear that their way of life faces an imminent end. "It's all over—it's finished," Ibrahim Koita, head of the Society of Social Welfare in Mopti Region, told UN news agency IRIN in the capital, Bamako, where he is trying to pressure donors for more aid. Pastoralists from the northern regions of Adara, Azawad, Tiilenis and Gourma generally head to southern Mali, and into Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast or as far as Togo in search of pasture before the rainy season, which lasts from June to October. Once the rains arrive, they move north again to avoid the Middle Niger Delta flood zone, finding renewed pasturelands on the edge of the desert. But at the end of July, pasture had yet to appear in the north. 

Amnesty International warned after a visit to Mali July 31 that the country is slipping into "human rights chaos," with abuses documented in the government-controlled south as well as the rebel-held north. Amnesty documented at least one incident in the north in which a couple were stoned to death for pre-marital sex. But in the south, the army has been involved in extra-judicial killings, torture and sexual abuse since staging a coup in March, Amnesty found, demanding an investigation. The military has handed power to a civilian-led interim government, but that government appears to rule at the army's behest. Meanwhile,  the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) reports that it has "visited 79 Malian military personnel held by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA)  in the Tinzaouatène area of northeastern Mali." A map indicates that Tinzaouatène is actually just across the border from northern Mali's Kidal region in Algerian territory. All previous reports indicate that MNLA forces have been entirely pushed out of northern Mali by Islamist forces.

Fighters of the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and allied Islamist factions pushed Tuareg rebels of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) out of their last foothold in northern Mali, the town of Ansogo, about 100 kilometers north of Gao, on July 12. For the first time since the rebellion pushed Malian government forces out of Azawad in April, the entire region is now completely in Islamist hands. The remaining MNLA fighters are believed to have fled into Niger. Islamist militants have surrounded Gao with landmines, making it almost impossible to enter. But Britain's Guardian newspaper says it has obtained film footage depicting foreign Islamists patrolling Gao, dragging the bodies of senior Tuareg insurgents through the town behind pick-up trucks and conducting public whippings of three young people for "offenses" under sharia law, including smoking and having sex outside marriage.

With elections underway in Libya, "federalists" demanding a greater share of power in the east of the country are blocking roads and oil terminals to enforce their call for a boycott. A helicopter carrying election materials was shot at, and an official from the High National Electoral Council (HNEC) who had been onboard was killed near Benghazi. Polling stations in Brega and Ajdabiyah were unable to open due to the incident. The federalists are demanding an equal distribution of National Assembly seats between Libya's three historic provinces of Barqa, Fezzan and Tripolitania. The current allocation of seats gives Tripolitania—where more than half of Libyans live—109 seats in the 200-member body. The three regions appear to be based on the Ottoman-era administrative divisions, with the name Cyrenaica changed to Barqa—probably to de-emphasize Cyrenaica's status as a self-governing territory at various times in Libya's history. (See map.)

A lawyer for the International Criminal Court (ICC) who was recently released from detention in Libya stated July 6 that she did not believe Libya could hold a fair trial for Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the son of former Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi. Melinda Taylor was detained by Libyan authorities for nearly four weeks for allegedly passing illicit information to Saif al-Islam in a Libyan prison. She maintains that her detention in the country was unjustified. Taylor and three other ICC staff members were detained by Libyan authorities while on an official mission to meet with Saif al-Islam and assist with his legal defense. The ICC has expressed concern about Libya's ability to give Saif al-Islam a fair trial since he was captured by Libyan rebel forces in November. Taylor said the actions of Libyan authorities have demonstrated that they are incapable of holding a fair and impartial trial.