The Mali War is an ongoing conflict that began on 16 January 2012 with a Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali. The rebels included the secular-oriented National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a group fighting for independence or greater autonomy of a region they called Azawad. The MNLA was initially allied with the jihadist Ansar Dine, which, in turn, was allied to other Salafi jihadist organizations such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its splinter, Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA).
On 22 March 2012, President Amadou Toumani Touré was ousted in a coup d'état over his handling of the crisis, a month before a presidential election was to have taken place.