Mali

Gunmen have killed two UN peacekeepers in a region of northwestern Mali wracked by jihadist violence, the UN said Sunday.

French forces killed Algerian national Abdelmalek Droukdel, the head of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in a raid in northern Mali on Wednesday. … Three jihadist leaders now loom large over the central Sahel: Iyad Ag Ghaly and Amadou Kouffa — who are both linked to al-Qaeda — and Adnan Abou Walid Sahraoui, who leads the region’s Islamic State group franchise.

In both cases, community leaders said attackers targeted members of the Fulani group - semi-nomadic herders who have been accused by rival farming communities of supporting local armed groups, making them targets of violence from ethnic vigilante militias and sometimes government forces.

Mr. Lacroix was briefing a videoconference meeting of the Council as the United Nations considers options for beefing up its support for the G5 Sahel Joint Force, including through its MINUSMA peacekeeping mission in Mali.

The United Nations peacekeeping force in Mali must remain in the country, and at its current strength, Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said in a new report, after Washington questioned its validity. … For more than a year, the US - the largest financial contributor to the UN - has regularly questioned the validity of the mission, deemed ill-suited to the ongoing violence in the west African nation.

Germany's parliament on Friday extended its mandate for the country's troops deployed with the European Union Training Mission in Mali (EUTM). A sizeable majority of 437 MPs supported the extension of the Bundeswehr's directive until May 2021.

Uncertainty remains over many aspects of the AU’s planned troop deployment to fight terrorism in the region.

The so-called ‘Malian crisis’ has now become a regionally multidimensional crisis. Economic, social, political and human dimensions are fed by structural and continuing dissatisfaction of marginalized and vulnerable populations. The fall of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya (2011) and the subsequent destabilization of Mali (2012) have had protracted consequences throughout the Sahel region which was already affected by structural factors of fragility such as climatic, economic and development challenges.

Three UN peacekeepers from Chad were killed in northern Mali on Sunday when their convoy hit a roadside bomb near Aguelhok, in the restive Kidal region. The improvised device also seriously injured four others who are now receiving medical care, the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) said in a statement.