LINK: ‘Badass Librarians’ Foil al Qaeda, Save Ancient Manuscripts

In 2012, jihadists—armed to the teeth with
weapons seized in Libya after the fall of Muammar Qaddafi—overran
northern Mali and established a brutal, sharia regime in Timbuktu. Once a center of learning and culture, the city housed a priceless collection of manuscripts:
volumes of poetry, encyclopedias, and even sexual manuals that invoked
the name of Allah. Threatened with destruction, the manuscripts were
spirited out of the city to safety in a thrilling, cloak-and-dagger
operation.