There have been Muslims in West Africa since the XIth century, if not earlier. The region that is now Mali was the center of several famous Islamic empires, notably the Ghana Empire (VIIIth-XIthcentury) (Dieterlen & Sylla, 1992) the Songhai Empire (1464-1591) (Cissoko, 1996), and states established by a succession of jihads led by various Muslim armies.
(Archived document, may contain errors) April 20, 1983 U.N. PEACEKEEPING AN EMPTY MANDATE INTRODUCTION Born in 1945 from the devastation of a world war that produced almost 49,000,000 military and civilian deaths, the United Nations was to many a new hope for a more peacegul world. The U.N.