MALI-UNREST-QAEDA-REBELS

Embargoed until September 26, 2012 - 07:02 GMT / TO GO WITH AFP EXCLUSIVE BY SERGE DANIEL A photo taken on September 21, 2012 shows a group of armed Islamists making rounds in Gao, the biggest city in northern Mali now under the control of armed Islamist groups. Perhaps the most startling thing about these fighters along this frontier route is that nearly all of them are from sub-Saharan Africa rather than just the Maghreb. "Me too, I am surprised," Nigerien Hicham Bilal, who is leading a Katiba (combat unit) to Gao, admitted to AFP. "Every day we have new volunteers. They come from Togo, Benin, Niger, Guinea, Senegal, Algeria and elsewhere." AFP PHOTO / ISSOUF SANOGO (Photo by Issouf SANOGO / AFP) (Photo by ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP via Getty Images)