Mali

Mali's foreign affairs ministry said that Chad planned to deploy 1,000 additional soldiers to Mali to reinforce its troops battling insurgents there, as France scales back its military presence in Africa's Sahel Region.

Two days after the European Union joined the United States in imposing sanctions on the Wagner Group, Blinken voiced disappointment that Mali has rejected an offer of additional UN peacekeepers and is instead looking to the private paramilitary unit.

More than eight years after then French president, François Hollande, formally declared the start of France's military intervention to root out jihadist insurgents from northern Mali, French troops were handing over a key base in Timbuktu to the Malian military.

The head of Mali’s military-dominated government on Sunday promised West Africa’s regional bloc that he would provide it with an election timetable by January 2022. The head of Mali’s transitional government, Colonel Assimi Goita, justified postponing the election and holding a national consultation which he said would be “indispensable” for peace and stability.

Authorities in Mali seem to be considering negotiations with Jamaat Nusratul Islam wal-Muslimin, the country’s largest Islamist insurgency. Pursuing talks will be a tall order, given the stakes and the group’s al-Qaeda connection. Both the government and the militants should begin with incremental steps.

On Wednesday morning, seven UN peacekeepers from Togo died and three others were seriously injured when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in the Bandiagara region in central Mali. 

French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly granted an interview to FRANCE 24 and RFI in Dakar, Senegal. Parly slammed a "disinformation campaign" aimed at creating "anti-French discourse" in Africa's Sahel region, as France reorganises its military presence there. The minister said she did not believe Russian Wagner Group mercenaries were in the Malian capital Bamako, but added that "that does not mean the current Malian authorities are not planning to bring them there". The arrival of Russian mercenaries in Mali would be "simply unacceptable", she said.

Two explosions rocked UN camps in the northern Mali city of Gao on Sunday, causing damage but no casualties, AFP journalists at the scene said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Saturday warned the shadowy Russian mercenary group Wagner over involvement in Mali as he pressed for a civilian transition in the troubled country.

France has handed back control of the Tessalit base to the Malian army, military officials announced on Tuesday, part of plans to reorganise French forces deployed in the restive Sahel region under "Operation Barkhane".