Mali

Junta-led Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have ditched the G5 anti-jihadist force. Experts say their intended new confederation to tackle Islamist insurgents in the Sahel is bound to fail unless they mend ties with ECOWAS.

Mali's judiciary has announced an investigation into several ethnic separatists and Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist leaders for terrorism and money laundering, as security deteriorates in the country.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali on Saturday said it had left a ninth of its 12 bases as part of its forced withdrawal from the junta-led country battling separatist and jihadi rebellions.

Mali's army has recaptured the strategically important northern town of Kidal from an alliance of predominantly Tuareg armed groups known as the Cadre Strategique Permanent, or permanent strategic framework. … The rebel groups, who have controlled Kidal since driving out the army in 2014, admitted they withdrew for tactical reasons after having fought an army advance for several days. 

Mali’s army said Tuesday it has retaken the northern city of Kidal from rebels, after a raid that left many insurgents dead. The reported capture, not confirmed by independent observers, would mark a symbolic victory for Mali’s army as they have been virtually absent from the city, with ethnic Tuareg rebels controlling much of the northern part of the country.

The 19 interpreters wrote to the German government on 7 August asking for protection as the jihadist groups that operate in northern Mali regard those who work with the UN as traitors.

UN says it is the sixth incident since the peacekeepers left their base in northern Kidal on October 31.

U.N. soldiers Tuesday left a camp in the strategic town of Kidal in Mali's volatile north, which has been wracked by jihadist and separatist violence, several sources in the peacekeeping mission told AFP.

[…] “The UN underscores the responsibility of the Malian Transitional Government for the safety and security of peacekeepers and calls on it to extend all necessary cooperation to facilitate MINUSMA’s withdrawal,” the global body said in a note to correspondents issued on Sunday.

Heightened tensions and the increasingly hostile presence of armed groups in northern Mali are likely to impede the departure of the UN Stabilization Mission there (MINUSMA), the UN said in a note to correspondents issued on Saturday.