Title: Katiba - Jean-Christophe Rufin - book
Summary :
A katiba is a camp for Islamist fighters set up in the Sahara; it's both a hiding place and a relay, a place where people pray, negotiate, and kill. Invisible by plane or satellite, it's where traps are set and attacks are decided. The leader of the area stretching between Mali, Algeria, and Mauritania, Kader Bel Kader, has decided to bypass the other trafficking gangs operating in order to establish his influence with al-Qaeda leaders. Sent to Mauritania by the intelligence agency Providence (which was already operating in the shadows with Le Parfum d'Adam) to spy on the architects of these terrorist threats, Dim finds a young woman, Jasmine, on his way. Both French and Algerian, with an insider's knowledge of Western diplomacy and the new laws of terrorist warfare, she walks the border between two enemy worlds, she fascinates and worries. She embodies the Senegalese proverb that opens the novel and weaves its main plot: "A dog may have four legs, but it cannot follow two paths at once." A great novel where two civilizations intersect and clash.
