Mali violence: What we know about the West African country's conflict

Today's violence in Mali has drawn attention to tensions in the West African country.

Islamic extremists armed with guns and grenades took 170 people hostage at a luxury hotel in the capital Bamako. All the hostages were freed after the day-long siege. National broadcaster ORTM, citing security officials, said 27 bodies were found at the hotel following the attacks.

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The country has seen similar violence, attacks and high-profile kidnappings before. There is an ongoing conflict in the country's north, complicated by spillover from Libya's conflict, as well as the presence of al-Qaeda-linked groups. It was also the location of the high-profile 2009 kidnapping of Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler.

Here's how Mali became one of the world's bigger trouble spots.

Expats targeted

Friday's attacks targeted a hotel known to host foreigners.

"This is the most expensive hotel in Bamako," says Cédric Jourde, a University of Ottawa professor who specializes in Islamic politics in Africa. "It's the place where expats go — not a place where the average Malian or Bamako citizen hangs out."

In August, a hotel in the Malian city of Sevare was attacked, leaving nine dead. United Nations staff were known to frequent the hotel. The was a similar attack at a bar in Bamako in March — five people were killed.

Jourde says these al-Qaeda-linked groups could be behind today's violence, but cautions that it's still too early to tell who is responsible.

An expert on African politics and terrorism says the history of the country needs to be considered.

"It's important to keep in mind that very often, these types of attacks in Africa have local roots and local political reasons that need to be taken into account," says Rita Abrahamsen, an African politics expert who teaches at the University of Ottawa.

Abrahamsen attended the African Union Peace and Security Council meeting two weeks ago that focused on how to combat extremist violence in the region.

"They [the African Union] are worried about the way in which terrorist groups appear to be able to continue their attacks both in the Sahel [region of the Sahara in northern Africa] and the way in which they are seen to be able to link up with other terrorist groups in other parts of Africa," she says.

Power struggle

A struggle for control has been ongoing in the country's northern region for several years. According to the United Nations, the Mali government lost control of the area in a 2012 coup to different rebel groups.

One of the groups involved was the Tuareg rebels. A traditionally nomadic people, they have been seeking control of a large portion of northern Mali. Abrahamsen says they have had a decades-long rebellion due to their marginalization and political exclusion in the country.

There are also several armed al-Qaeda-linked groups. Abrahamsen says many of them have splintered.

"And then when we had the crisis in 2012 that was influenced by a flow of Islamists from the Libyan crisis; you had a kind of perfect storm of events there," she says.

That "perfect storm" led to a 2013 UN peacekeeping intervention, bolstered by French and African Union troops.

A fragile truce was brokered later that year, but the country has been volatile ever since.

Jourde says the al-Qaeda splinter groups have benefited from an effective leader in Mokhtar Belmokhtar, said to be the plotter behind many high-profile attacks and kidnappings throughout northern Africa.

He has not only been able to bring al-Qaeda's influence to northern Mali, but he has achieved what other Islamic militants have not — he has managed to successfully align himself with, and recruit, many Tuareg rebels.

Former 'donor darling'

Abrahamsen says that before the coup in 2012, Mali was seen as a success story on the international stage.

"We used to call it a 'donor darling,'" she says.

Donors lavished aid and assistance on the country, due to its perceived stability and democracy. But she says it fell apart "literally almost overnight" in the 2012 coup.

"The democracy that they had was very much a surface democracy built on an exclusion of the northern group. And that's I think really at the heart of understanding the developments in Mali — the inability to include vast sections of the population."

Thousands of Malians have escaped the violence by fleeing to neighbouring Niger. The UN says there are nearly 50,000 refugees there, with recent spikes in October and November. Malians have also fled to Algeria, Burkina Faso and Mauritania since 2012.