I wasn't looking for this book. I was actually looking up the film Bad Ass (2012), but noted this interesting book title among the search results:
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu (2016)
https://www.hoopladigital.com/title/11621496
The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu, later became one of the world's greatest and most brazen smugglers. In 2012, thousands of Al Qaeda militants from northwest Africa seized control of most of Mali, including Timbuktu. They imposed Sharia law, chopped off the hands of accused thieves, stoned to death unmarried couples, and threatened to destroy the great manuscripts. As the militants tightened their control over Timbuktu, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali.
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Abdel Kader Haidara
The saviour of the Timbuktu manuscripts
https://en.gariwo.net/righteous/africa/abdel-kader-haidara-21109.html
For eight months, at night, hundreds of volunteers carried boxes full of books loaded on donkeys from one safe place to another. The "smuggling" of manuscripts was difficult mainly because of the checkpoints: those of the jihadists in the area...
Despite Haiara's efforts, in January 2013 the Al Qaeda militiamen set fire to the Ahmed Baba Institute in Timbuktu, which kept almost 100,000 manuscripts. Shortly after, the French army intervened in the northern of Mali to quell the conflict: the Islamists had destroyed 4.000 manuscripts, a small percentage if you consider that in total the city housed almost 400 thousand before 2012.
