Journalist Andy Morgan describes the remote mountains in the deserts of northern Mali, where Islamist rebels are believed to have fled after French-led forces chased them out of the region's main towns, possibly taking several French hostages with them.
Lost in the middle of Tegharghar mountains in the far north-east of Mali, Esel is a an eerie and magical place.
It is dominated by a vast, smooth boulder, as high as a five-storey building and as long as 10 double-decker buses, that sits on top of a warren of caves.
The rock itself has been split neatly in two by the heat of the Saharan sun and the cold of the Saharan night.
The ground leading to it is strewn with ancient stone arrowheads and axes.
In prehistoric times, those caves were home to hunter-gatherers. Now they could very well be sheltering Islamist militants fleeing the advancing forces of France and its African allies.
I visited Esel a few years ago with Ibrahim, the lead singer of Tinariwen, a group of Tuareg guitarists and poets that I was managing at the time.
For him and for many Tuareg, it is a place of reverence and contemplation, like Ayers Rock in Australia or the Grand Canyon in the US.
It also happens to be on the frontline of Operation Serval, France's continuing mission to rid northern Mali of militant Islamist groups.
The Tegharghar mountains give the word "remote" new meaning.
Nearby Kidal, the largest town in a region that is sometimes known as the Adagh des Ifoghas, or The mountains of the Ifoghas tribe, is 1,400 km (900 miles) from the Malian capital, Bamako.
'Impoverished nomads'
It has been at the epicentre of every single Tuareg rebellion against the central government since 1962.
Until the latest rebellion broke out in October 2011, precipitating an exodus of refugees, about 40,000 people lived in the low-slung buildings that sprawl around Kidal's 90-year old French Foreign Legion fort.
The surrounding landscape is desiccated and featureless, encrusted with black rocks that bake under a merciless sun.
It is the perfect place to fake a moon landing.
Unfortunately for the French, the Tegharghar mountains are also a perfect place for a guerrilla army.
The annual rains fill up the gueltas, or ponds, with drinking water for nomadic animal herds and insurgents.
The numerous caves offer shelter from sand storms and helicopter gunships.
Impoverished local nomads can easily be persuaded to part with the goats and camels needed to feed a rebel force.
The Algerian border is close and porous enough to keep supplies of food, diesel and ammunition flowing in - as long as corrupt local officials can be bribed or forced to turn a blind eye.
As I write, the French air force is bombing militant positions and arms dumps on the northern edge of the Tegharghar, around the village of Tessalit, a beautiful little oasis located next to a river that floods every June and July, if the rains are good.
BBC
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