Mali

A Mali-based al Qaeda affiliate has claimed responsibility for an attack on an army base that killed 23 Malian soldiers last week, its media arm said in a statement on Friday, citing violence against Fulani herdsmen as the motive.

At least 16 soldiers have been killed in a raid on an army camp in central Mali's Mopti region, two local councillors in the area where the attack happened said.

[…] As needs rise, aid groups say their ability to respond is being hamstrung by an increasingly militarised security landscape marked by confusion between military and humanitarian actors, shifting conflict dynamics, and funding gaps that are leaving displaced people like Guindo sick and starving.

[…] The recent wave of violence comes despite stepped-up efforts to end the unrest here, including peace agreements between communities, ceasefire commitments, airstrikes by French forces, presidential visits, and a government-backed demobilisation, disarmament, and reintegration, or DDR, scheme that has just got going.

The United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres and the UN Security Council condemned on Saturday in the strongest terms the attack against vehicles of the peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA), which took place on Friday and in which three "blue helmets" from Guinea were killed and at least another injured.

[…] As part of the regionalisation of CSDP missions in the Sahel, the EUCAP Sahel Mali mission will now be able to deliver specific, targeted strategic advice and training in Mauritania, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad, as set out in its revised operational plan (18 December 2018).

[…] Today, the Council decided to make more effective, at regional level, the work of the EU Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) missions in the Sahel: EUCAP Sahel Mali, EUCAP Sahel Niger and EUTM Mali. It approved a joint civil-military concept of operations on regionalisation of CSDP action in the Sahel. This means that the process of regionalisation will now enter its second phase.

A German convoy was attacked on Saturday as it was returning from a mission to recover a UN transport vehicle 50 kilometers (31 miles) from their base in Gao in western Mali, the German military said in a statement Sunday.

Islamist militants are increasing their activity in West Africa despite the establishment of a regional force to combat them in the Sahel region, and they are now threatening coastal countries, Burkina Faso's foreign minister said on Saturday. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Minister Alpha Barry gave a bleak outlook of the situation more than six years after French troops intervened in Mali to stop Islamist militants advancing on the capital Bamako.