Members of an al-Qaida-linked Islamic militant group have agreed to a cease-fire in Mali at the behest of an influential imam. A statement attributed to the group’s leader Iyad Ag Ghaly appeared on the Malijet website Sunday saying that his Ansar Dine fighters would abide by the request.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson are hosting a meeting in London designed to break Libya’s political stalemate. Monday’ session comes after the UN-backed Libyan government’s failure to win legitimacy — or to function at all — amid deep political fragmentation.

Algerian-German relations and the security situation in the Sahel region were at the centre of the discussions, Monday in Algiers, between Minister of Maghreb affairs, African Union and Arab League, Abdelkader Messahel and Germany’s Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Defence Ralf Brauksiepe.