Western policy is increasingly reminiscent of Stan Laurel's famous "nice mess" catchphrase. By overthrowing Gaddafi, the ill-thought-out Nato campaign in Libya dispersed thousands of heavily armed men into the Sahel states, where Islamist terrorists have piggybacked to power amidst military mutinies and separatist campaigns.

Northern Mali, an area the size of Spain, is controlled by two groups — Ansar Dine and Mujao (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa) — which are grimly implementing sharia. In Gao, a suspected cattle thief's hand was hacked off, to cries of "God is great". In a desert town called Aguelhok, a young couple accused of having a child out of wedlock were buried up to their necks and stoned to death. It took about a quarter of an hour for them to die, watched by silent members of the public. 

This grim Islamist regimen has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee within Mali, and other Sahel states such as Niger, upsetting a delicate economy that has already been badly hit by drought. Worse, the only real source of potential relief — the regional powerhouse of Nigeria — has been plagued by an equally lethal Islamist movement (Boko Haram, or "Western education is forbidden") in precisely those northern provinces from which grain could be shipped to the multiplying number of starving refugees from radical Islamism in the Sahel states. 

So now, in addition to northern Mali becoming an Afghan-style safe haven for the world's jihadist riff-raff, the entire Sahel belt of states is facing the prospect of starvation as well as the obliteration of the delicate religious eco-system that enabled Sufism to thrive for hundreds of years. Unfortunately, those mud shrines in Timbuktu are just the latest examples of this jihad, though their destruction is greatly to be regretted. It will be the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) and Nigeria that will have to clean up Nato's mess.