Northern Mali still unstable despite French intervention Malian children play in the streets of Timbuktu. Despite being free from the previous jihadist curfew, many locals choose to stay inside after 9pm. Photograph: Jerome Delay/AP There is an eerie silence in Timbuktu. A sweltering heat lingers at this, the hottest time of year, and a mist of sand obscures the fabled Saharan town - but something is missing. "When the jihadists came here, they killed all the dogs," explains Tahar Haidara, 32, one of the town's hotel owners. They called it Operation Dog. There used to be many pet dogs here - they were barking at them and it annoyed them. So they [shot] them. It's not just the absence of dogs - a staple presence in most Malian towns - that gives Timbuktu a subdued air. Banks, restaurants and many other businesses remain shut after they were looted and vandalised by the city's jihadist occupants. Army vehicles patrol the streets and there is a ban on driving after 6pm, when night begins to fall. The famously diverse city has been almost emptied of its Tuareg inhabitants. Residents say that only a few Tuareg women remain and all the men have left. Many accuse the Tuaregs - whose rebellion in the quest for an independent state in the Malian desert paved the way for al-Qaida-linked rebels to seize control of northern Mali last April - of continuing to wage armed conflict. There are also reports of armed robbery. "There is a lot of banditry outside the city," said Colonel Gilles Bationo, from Burkina Faso, who leads the UN-backed African military force in the Timbuktu region. It is difficult to know who is a jihadist, who is the MNLA [the Tuareg Mouvement National de Liberation de l'Azawad], and who is a bandit. All these bandits have taken advantage of the security situation. The jihadists are getting supplies from people by attacking them on the road. The security problems in northern Mali, where militants have lost their grip on towns but large weapons caches are believed to be hidden in the desert, have dampened the jubilant spirit that arose when French forces swept into the region in January. In addition to regular incidents outside Timbuktu, it and other towns in the north have been rocked by a spate of suicide bombings, previously unheard of in the country. Army officials and residents alike say it is impossible to completely eliminate the risk of further similar attacks."No one knows if there will be more suicide bombings," said Bationo. It is possible at any time. All we can do is continue to patrol the city and the area outside it, and to be vigilant. On one empty billboard "Vive la France" has been scribbled in chalk, then crossed out. Nearby, Arabic graffiti is daubed on a wall in red paint. Across the road, a gaudy mansion, which residents say belonged to a Tuareg narcotics chief, is barricaded with a makeshift fence of dry branches. The empty bag of an intravenous drip lies in the sand outside. "The jihadists were well-equipped," said Haidara, who left the city for the capital, Bamako, two days before the jihadist occupation began. They had all their own medical supplies. They occupied this house when the owners were forced to flee. Everyone is happy that the French drove them out - that is why I came back. But the suicide bombings have made people fear that [we have] not really been liberated. We listen to music, dance, drink alcohol, do what we want. But at 9pm or 10pm, we go home and stay inside.