Mali

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".

[…] Regardless of any support provided, addressing governance shortfalls remains
critical to ensuring lasting stability in the Sahel.

The West African regional grouping ECOWAS on Sunday hardened its stance against military-ruled Mali and Guinea, imposing new individual sanctions and calling on both countries to honour timetables for a return to democracy.

Between May and October, the Mission responded to “a myriad of requests” from the Government and the Defence and Security Forces, in terms of rations, fuel, ground and air transport and engineering services. El-Ghassim Wane warned, however, that the Mission is currently “overstretched.” 

Mali’s transitional government has ordered an envoy of the 15-nation West African regional bloc to leave the country within 72 hours because of actions “incompatible with his status.”

Mali’s government has denied that it plans to negotiate with jihadists, walking back an earlier statement from its religion ministry saying that it would do so.

French authorities have announced the death of Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, founder of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara. In this Q&A, Crisis Group experts Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim and Jean-Hervé Jezequel explain how his demise could open space for dialogue among militants and Sahelian governments.

Mali’s government says that it has asked the country’s main Islamic body to open peace talks with leaders of al-Qaeda’s local affiliate in an effort to end a decade of conflict. … Such an approach is vigorously opposed by Mali’s chief military ally France, whose president, Emmanuel Macron, said in June that French troops would not conduct joint operations with countries that negotiate with such groups.