UK issues terror warning for travel to Mali\'s Timbuktu

The UK government is warning tourists not to visit Timbuktu in northern Mali, because of a threat of terrorism.



The remote town is included on an updated travel advisory issued by the Foreign Office.



A British tourist, Edwin Dyer, was killed in Mali in June by a group which claims links to al-Qaeda.



However, local officials insist that the threat is being exaggerated.



They say such warnings are already having a crippling effect on the tourism industry.



The vast area of the Sahara Desert is now being used as a hiding place for a relatively small number of militants from the group known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.



In recent months, they have kidnapped several Westerners for ransom, sometimes seizing them in foreign countries and taking them into Mali.