Clan warfare trumps diplomacy in Mali's fragile north

Mali: The United Nations has deployed 10,000 peacekeepers and poured more than $1 billion into Mali but its efforts to end a three-year conflict are threatened by the reemergence of a centuries-old rivalry between Tuareg clans.

The U.N. Security Council renewed the mandate of its Mali force (MINUSMA) in June in the hope that it could enforce a peace deal signed that month in the West African nation, despite suffering the highest rate of losses of any active peacekeeping mission.