CONTROVERSY IN THE OFFING OVER TIMBAKTU IN WEST AFRICA

Timbaktu is a real place, a market town in the middle of West Africa's poorest country, Mali. The local residents live from salt quarried in slabs in the desert. Extremist Islamic historians want the place protected from the onslaught of ther civilized world.

People from the outside world have started visiting there; not just to collect the postmark, not so common even today. Timbaktu's history will soon be more than imaginery because some well-informed art dealers now travel to the town "plunder" the region's "priceless" centuries-old heritage, some Islamic scholars claim.

For example, the Ahmad Baba Library alone houses 15,000 Arabic manuscripts. They date from the days when Timbaktu was a center of learning and nomads who followed the stars through the Great Sahara tethered their camels to hooks made from the local metal --gold.

According to legend, it is the furthest a human being can travel. But the windswept town along the River Niger in the sand dunes, with 5,000 years of history, four medieval mosques and about 300 dwellings, which look as if they were molded in a child's beach bucket.

Some Islamists contend that Timbaktu's heritage is equal in wealth to ancient Greece and the Nile Valley. "Muslims will never allow its plunder in the fashion for "primitive" art.