At the beginning of June 2012, according to the Toumapress agency, women demonstrated against “the obscurantists of Ansar Dine”.

On January 29, 2013, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) announced that the city of In Khalil was under its control.

On February 3, 2013, Ansar Dine number 3, Mohamed Moussa Ag Mouhamed, responsible for the implementation of sharia in Timbuktu, was arrested there.

The MNLA reported that its army was fighting a coalition formed by the MUJAO, Ansar al-Sharia.

On February 23, about thirty armored vehicles attacked from the northeast and northwest of the city, according to the MNLA.