[1] By the 28 June, Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal, the three biggest cities in the disputed secessionist region of Azawad within what is recognised as Malian territory, were under the control of Ansar Dine and its Islamist allies.

Two days later, parts of the World Heritage Site of Timbuktu had started to be destroyed, amid condemnation by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), Mali and France.

While MNLA also criticised the Islamists for holding civilians and destroying the structures, Ansar Dine said that the destruction was due to violation of sharia (their Najdi interpretation) and in reaction to UNESCO's labeling of the sites of Timbuktu and in Gao as "in danger."

Following previous Tuareg rebellions in 2007–2009 and the Libyan Civil War, in early 2012 the MNLA and Islamist movements captured northern Mali.

In mid-June 2012, Intallah Ag Assai, an MNLA colonel, said that the airport served as a base for their weapons and equipment, with more than half of their war material being seized from battles with the army.

[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] On June 25, 2012, a local elected official and teacher of the city, Idrissa Oumarou was shot at close range by strangers on motorcycle.

After being extricated from the fighting, he was later taken to a hospital in Burkina Faso's capital city of Ouagadougou; while Colonel Bouna Ag Tahib, a defector from the Malian army, was killed.

[19][20] The MNLA's Azawad Vice President Mahamadou Djeri Maïga acknowledged that they lost control of the city but said that the fight would continue.

[22] A previous death toll of 20 was later revised by doctors who added the number of dead found in the Niger River and the wounded who succumbed to their injuries.

[24] Ansar Dine's Chief of Security for Gao, Omar Ould Hamaha, said that the group controls the region and would impose sharia.

One hundred percent of the north of Mali is Muslim, and even if they don't want this, they need to go along with it.Paris-based MNLA spokesman, Moussa Ag Assarid, said that though the group had lost ground in the big cities "we control 90% of the Azawad.

[30] A statement by the World Heritage Committee also read that it "asked Mali's neighbours to do all in their power to prevent the trafficking in cultural objects from these sites.

"[31] ECOWAS then met on 29 June in the Ivorian capital of Yamoussoukro in order to work towards "additional measures to prevent matters in Mali becoming bogged down," according to host President Alassane Ouattara.