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Alastair Leithead reports from north of Timbuktu on the challenges for the UN mission in Mali. How will its troops tell bandits from terrorists, and identify jihadi leaders? Amid the sands of the Sahara there are flourishing markets in drugs, arms and people smuggling - and there are still suicide bombers and militant groups moving around the area. The UN force in Mali (MINUSMA) has its work cut out. By some workings this is the deadliest peacekeeping mission in the world at the moment. While negotiations go on in Bamako to hammer out a workable peace, some factions are still launching attacks in the interior even as their representatives sit down for talks in the capital.

(Photo: Members of the UN peacekeeping force in Mali prepare to go out on patrol)