(((Presumably the end destination for that coke is Europe, but it's kinda amazing that armed cocaine smugglers would be transiting the deep Sahara with the Tuaregs. Somebody got paid to do that. I wonder who those guys are, and what kind of personal history led them to such a weird corner of black globalization.)))
Link: BBC NEWS | World | Africa | Mali cocaine haul after firefight.
(...)
"The smugglers abandoned the vehicles and reportedly fled over the Algerian border nearby, carrying their wounded.
"Correspondents say West Africa has become a major trafficking route for Colombian cocaine bound for Europe.
"The seizure took place... following a car chase and gun fight, or a battle, you could say, as they had military weapons," a senior Territorial Administration Ministry official told Reuters news agency. (((And probably military experience.)))
"After two hours of fighting, the smugglers, who were driving three Algerian-registered off-roaders, abandoned two of them, loaded their wounded into the third vehicle and fled over the border," he said.
"The past year has seen large cocaine seizures in other West African countries including Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Senegal and Sierra Leone."
