Mali

Sahel countries and their ally France on Tuesday vowed to press ahead with a tactical shift in their campaign against an eight-year-old jihadist insurgency, saying the change had notched up substantial gains although major challenges also remain. After a summit in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott to review the new strategy at the six-month mark, French President Emmanuel Macron said there had been “spectacular results.”

Brushing aside any concern about coronavirus, huge crowds are sustaining a campaign of mass protest across Mali, demanding the resignation of the West African state's increasingly beleaguered President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta. … The real mobiliser - the figure who wields the critical crowd pulling power - is an imam, Mahmoud Dicko.

Feeding an entrenched cycle of violence and reprisal, 580 civilians have been killed in Mali so far this year, as worsening security conditions and widespread impunity undermine efforts to protect people caught in intercommunal fighting, the UN Human Rights chief said on Friday.

The UN Secretary-General has appealed for calm in Mali, following protests in the capital, Bamako, on Friday. … For the second time this month, thousands of Malians took to the streets of the capital on Friday to demand the resignation of President Ibrahim Boubakar Keïta.

West African regional bloc ECOWAS on Saturday called on Mali to re-run some of its contested local elections and convene a government of national unity after anti-government protests swept the capital Bamako.

[…] On Friday 5 June 2020, the opposition to the regime proved its capacity for mass mobilization raising the fundamental question of the capacity of the regime to deal with the multiple challenges and, more generally, the ability of the Malian state to regain its sovereignty, which is fragmented, under international control and constantly disputed by domestic actors.

Dozens of troops were either killed or are missing after jihadists ambushed their convoy in central Mali, military sources said on Monday.

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.