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The incident took place near the town of Ber, in the region of Tombouctou - an area that has become a hotbed of jihadist activity over the past decade.

The University of Cape Town launched the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project in 2003, with an emphasis on "manuscript traditions throughout the African continent", according to the website.

"The information that the library was burnt is not correct," says Susana Molins-Lliteras, a historian at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and a researcher at the Cape Town-based Tombouctou Manuscripts Project, which helped construct the library building.

But Shamil Jeppie, director of the Tombouctou Manuscripts Project at the University of Cape Town, rejects the idea that this is about the kind of consistent ideology found in other groups we call Islamist.

The meeting was held in what had once been an assembly chamber of the officials of the former Cercle de Tombouctou, when this had all been part of French Sudan.