It's both a Mali and a regional concern.
In terms of Mali, prior to the coup there had been 20 years of democracy, a democracy with some weaknesses, but a democracy, and one of the most vaunted democracies in Africa. The political instability in Mali and the bifurcation of the country meant that.... It was a geographic bifurcation, a geographic split of the country, but also ethnic and increasingly religious, about a year ago. That's not good for Mali's return to democracy. There have been some important developments on that front, as I mentioned in my opening statement, with the Tuareg in the north no longer siding with the Islamist extremists, and some important steps to go back to democracy in the south as a road map.
It's a Malian problem, but it's part of a broader Sahel problem in that across that region of northern Mali, Niger, Mauritania, and the parts of Algeria running across that part of Africa, over the last few years it has become increasingly a haven for some terrorist extremist groups.
There have long been very porous borders in that area. There are long histories of certain ethnic groups moving freely through the Sahel, certain smuggling enterprises through the Sahel, but the rise of terrorist groups that have been increasingly emboldened is alarming to the whole international community, emboldened partially because of some money and outflow of arms in the context of Libya, but that predated the Libyan military intervention. The arms and money have been coming out of Libya for a while, and from other sources starting to fuel the Islamist extremist groups.
As a terrorist haven the Sahel has caused concern to the international community for a while. I won't get into great detail, but as I said in my statement, we have been active for a long time on that front in security and counterterrorism programming.
At the same time there's a humanitarian crisis in the Sahel, and a food crisis in the Sahel, which I mentioned, and I think Mr. Morrison mentioned, that exacerbated the vulnerability of the population as well.