A short NYT article, which appears to be based on unofficial statements from French & US officials and not that we have not heard this language before:
So the group that terrorized half a country, northern Mali, in the heart of West Africa for much of 2012, taking over its major towns, and threatening other nations in the region, has been reduced to a pale remnant of its former self. It is no longer the pre-eminent threat to the fragile states in West Africa’s Sahel region — the band of desert and semi-desert running just below the Sahara.
Link:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/30/wo...=tw-share&_r=1