France Suspends Joint Military Operations With Mali After Coup
- Thread starter Tatvamasi
- Start date
- Niger’s revocation of its defense agreement with the United States points to the geopolitical miscalculations of Western states in the Sahel.
- Pivots by juntas in Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso from the West towards Russia shows that political security provides a more reliable indicator of Sahelian government decision making than counterterrorism objectives or historical grievances.
- Ten years after benefitting from the regional surge of Shia militias to fight Islamic State, Iran is now apparently seeking Niger’s uranium, according to the United States.
- Without French and U.S. support, Sahelian militaries have proven ineffective in their fights against jihadist groups.
IntelBrief: Niger: The Inevitable Revocation - The Soufan Center
After months of negotiations, Niger has revoked its 14-year-old defense agreement with the United States.
thesoufancenter.org
Mali: Army, Wagner Group Atrocities Against Civilians
Malian armed forces and Wagner Group foreign fighters have unlawfully killed and summarily executed several dozen civilians during counterinsurgency operations in Mali’s central and northern regions since December 2023.
Burkina Faso: soldiers shoot videos bragging about army violence against civilians
RFI 15/05/2024
deepl: One of the extremely violent videos - obtained by our France 24 colleague Wassim Nasr - shows human bodies being burned. The video was shot at the beginning of May between the towns of Foutouri and Sebba, in eastern Burkina Faso.
The men behind the camera are Burkina Faso soldiers, filming their own abuses. They can be heard joking about the victims, calling them "soup" that is "burning" and "already ripe".
Several images, taken by soldiers or jihadists, document a series of massacres committed in the region between 3 and 9 May. Witnesses reported that around a hundred people were killed by men in uniform who were escorting a supply convoy.
Other videos gathered by Wassim Nasr shed new light on an older massacre. It is said to have taken place on 25 February in the villages of Soro and Nodin in the north-west of the country. They show piles of human bodies lying on the ground. A Human Rights Watch report published in April attributed this massacre to the Burkinabe army. The NGO has counted 223 dead, including women and children.
Burkina Faso is plunged into a cycle of violence and reprisals. On the same day, a church was also targeted by an attack in the Dori region, this time by jihadists from the Islamic State organisation, killing around fifteen people.
Alioune Tine, the United Nations independent expert on human rights, has called on the X social network for the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into "the mass crimes committed on a recurring basis in Burkina Faso". /deepl
RFI 15/05/2024
deepl: One of the extremely violent videos - obtained by our France 24 colleague Wassim Nasr - shows human bodies being burned. The video was shot at the beginning of May between the towns of Foutouri and Sebba, in eastern Burkina Faso.
The men behind the camera are Burkina Faso soldiers, filming their own abuses. They can be heard joking about the victims, calling them "soup" that is "burning" and "already ripe".
Several images, taken by soldiers or jihadists, document a series of massacres committed in the region between 3 and 9 May. Witnesses reported that around a hundred people were killed by men in uniform who were escorting a supply convoy.
Other videos gathered by Wassim Nasr shed new light on an older massacre. It is said to have taken place on 25 February in the villages of Soro and Nodin in the north-west of the country. They show piles of human bodies lying on the ground. A Human Rights Watch report published in April attributed this massacre to the Burkinabe army. The NGO has counted 223 dead, including women and children.
Burkina Faso is plunged into a cycle of violence and reprisals. On the same day, a church was also targeted by an attack in the Dori region, this time by jihadists from the Islamic State organisation, killing around fifteen people.
Alioune Tine, the United Nations independent expert on human rights, has called on the X social network for the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into "the mass crimes committed on a recurring basis in Burkina Faso". /deepl
Russia needs cannon fodder for Ukraine. Destabilise Africa, block grain, force them to join the Hunger Games.
Back to reality on the ground. The Tuaregs and all the armed groups in the area have been avoiding confrontation with the Malian army and Wagner for several reasons.
The Malian army and Wagner are not in a war where they are imposing themselves by force of arms, they are taking up positions where there are no confrontations. The abuses we sometimes hear about will then be carried out on civilians. Bamako sees this as a conquest, as a victory, and considers that if the enemy flees, it means they have been routed.
But that's ignoring local tactics. If there are 10 Tuaregs in one place and there are 100 guys coming in the opposite direction, well, they're not going to fight them, they're going to flee. Fighting isn't automatic, they try to organise themselves to take advantage, choosing when and where to attack.
As we can see from this attack, the Malian army and Wagner were surprised by an ambush in the face of an enemy they continued to ignore, sinking into depths where they couldn't bring in reinforcements quickly, where the rare aircraft available were stretched to the limit, and where logistics didn't keep up.
The mentality in Bamako is still the idea that all you have to do is put your bags in one place to control that place, but the reality in northern Mali (or even in the region) is that you have to be able to hold these places, i.e. to be able to reinforce the points at any time, to be able to supply them without your convoys being easy targets (ambushes, mines, etc.), and to have your aircraft on standby to intervene quickly and not the next day. So the fragmentation of forces in this region can lead to a kind of trap, with the Tuaregs able to organise themselves to cut off "roads" or storm small detachments.
Today we have a return to this reality, this complexity in the face of Tuaregs who are far from weak. The Malian army still has potential, and Wagner is not just a few dozen dead more or less. On paper that's true, but the most damaging thing is the invisible part. The invisible is morale, confidence, enthusiasm, ideology. For some time now, Bamako's propaganda has been based on the idea that the Malian army is becoming more powerful, that it is winning all its battles, that its new armoured vehicles and new aircraft give it the means to victory, that its Russian allies are much more effective, that the risks with them are minimised.
Once again, it is not for nothing that the propaganda will seek to bury this defeat, like so many others, by passing it off as a victory in which the Malian army inflicted terrible losses on those on the other side, fighting heroically but having to withdraw for lack of fuel to continue moving towards victory. We've been hearing this kind of talk for a while now, and it continues to lull us into the illusion that everything is going well, that the Malian army has suddenly become super-powerful and efficient.
It's a bit the same with our neighbours in Niger and Burkina Faso, I repeat, you mustn't interpret these speeches as news, they may have 3 dead in an ambush that they'll publicly acknowledge but they'll add that they killed 50 guys on the other side so that it'll go down better and we'll turn a defeat into a victory.
The problem here is that the propaganda won't be able to hide the images and those on the other side who are staging their victory (collecting the corpses) know very well the impact it can have. They know that they are creating doubt in the Malian population and at the same time exposing the propaganda machine for its lies. They're going to deal a blow to the morale of the Malian army, which is telling itself that, in fact, having the Russians on its side isn't protection or life insurance.
It's a disillusionment with the Russian 'protector' who must have unconsciously reassured a good number of Malian soldiers when they were there, but now they're likely to reflect and understand that being accompanied by the Russians is not the same as being accompanied by the French before, when the worst that could happen was to run over a mine.
It's the same as with MINUSMA, which could be criticised for not tracking down terrorists, but the Malian army has very often taken advantage of its logistics and its armed convoys, taken advantage of its facilities, taken advantage of its helicopters to intervene following an ambush, to evacuate its wounded.
Where were the Malian aircraft today? Oh yes, they took out a helicopter that crashed. Yes, we can remind you that having aircraft on paper is one thing, that maintenance and upkeep are not just for show, that having aircraft on 'alert' 24/7 is essential if you want to deal with unforeseen events. Malian aircraft don't have to fly very long, and their maintenance is very sloppy in a very hard environment. We also remember the crash of the Il-76 aircraft in Gao a few months ago.
The consequences of this attack are likely to push Bamako and Wagner to seek revenge, which could lead to other disappointments. For while on the one hand the attack was a slap in the face, on the other, among the Tuaregs, it is more a dose of confidence that will tell all the groups that there is no need to fear this enemy, that he can be defeated.
We have already seen in the past that in this country, a few military defeats can create a snowball effect and an opposition from the military to advance, to hold their positions, not to say to fight. So let's not assume that if 50 people are killed tomorrow, others will replace them and carry on as if all this had never happened.
Morale is low in this army, and the propaganda about Wagner's mercenaries and the new weapons has no doubt boosted confidence, but to see today that these Russian mercenaries are not really providing any protection, to see these Chinese armoured vehicles that we used to praise on TV being destroyed, to see that the air power has been conspicuous by its absence and mediocrity (crash), well for some it's a psychological cold shower that the propaganda will have a hard time making up for.
The Malian army and Wagner are not in a war where they are imposing themselves by force of arms, they are taking up positions where there are no confrontations. The abuses we sometimes hear about will then be carried out on civilians. Bamako sees this as a conquest, as a victory, and considers that if the enemy flees, it means they have been routed.
But that's ignoring local tactics. If there are 10 Tuaregs in one place and there are 100 guys coming in the opposite direction, well, they're not going to fight them, they're going to flee. Fighting isn't automatic, they try to organise themselves to take advantage, choosing when and where to attack.
As we can see from this attack, the Malian army and Wagner were surprised by an ambush in the face of an enemy they continued to ignore, sinking into depths where they couldn't bring in reinforcements quickly, where the rare aircraft available were stretched to the limit, and where logistics didn't keep up.
The mentality in Bamako is still the idea that all you have to do is put your bags in one place to control that place, but the reality in northern Mali (or even in the region) is that you have to be able to hold these places, i.e. to be able to reinforce the points at any time, to be able to supply them without your convoys being easy targets (ambushes, mines, etc.), and to have your aircraft on standby to intervene quickly and not the next day. So the fragmentation of forces in this region can lead to a kind of trap, with the Tuaregs able to organise themselves to cut off "roads" or storm small detachments.
Today we have a return to this reality, this complexity in the face of Tuaregs who are far from weak. The Malian army still has potential, and Wagner is not just a few dozen dead more or less. On paper that's true, but the most damaging thing is the invisible part. The invisible is morale, confidence, enthusiasm, ideology. For some time now, Bamako's propaganda has been based on the idea that the Malian army is becoming more powerful, that it is winning all its battles, that its new armoured vehicles and new aircraft give it the means to victory, that its Russian allies are much more effective, that the risks with them are minimised.
Once again, it is not for nothing that the propaganda will seek to bury this defeat, like so many others, by passing it off as a victory in which the Malian army inflicted terrible losses on those on the other side, fighting heroically but having to withdraw for lack of fuel to continue moving towards victory. We've been hearing this kind of talk for a while now, and it continues to lull us into the illusion that everything is going well, that the Malian army has suddenly become super-powerful and efficient.
It's a bit the same with our neighbours in Niger and Burkina Faso, I repeat, you mustn't interpret these speeches as news, they may have 3 dead in an ambush that they'll publicly acknowledge but they'll add that they killed 50 guys on the other side so that it'll go down better and we'll turn a defeat into a victory.
The problem here is that the propaganda won't be able to hide the images and those on the other side who are staging their victory (collecting the corpses) know very well the impact it can have. They know that they are creating doubt in the Malian population and at the same time exposing the propaganda machine for its lies. They're going to deal a blow to the morale of the Malian army, which is telling itself that, in fact, having the Russians on its side isn't protection or life insurance.
It's a disillusionment with the Russian 'protector' who must have unconsciously reassured a good number of Malian soldiers when they were there, but now they're likely to reflect and understand that being accompanied by the Russians is not the same as being accompanied by the French before, when the worst that could happen was to run over a mine.
It's the same as with MINUSMA, which could be criticised for not tracking down terrorists, but the Malian army has very often taken advantage of its logistics and its armed convoys, taken advantage of its facilities, taken advantage of its helicopters to intervene following an ambush, to evacuate its wounded.
Where were the Malian aircraft today? Oh yes, they took out a helicopter that crashed. Yes, we can remind you that having aircraft on paper is one thing, that maintenance and upkeep are not just for show, that having aircraft on 'alert' 24/7 is essential if you want to deal with unforeseen events. Malian aircraft don't have to fly very long, and their maintenance is very sloppy in a very hard environment. We also remember the crash of the Il-76 aircraft in Gao a few months ago.
The consequences of this attack are likely to push Bamako and Wagner to seek revenge, which could lead to other disappointments. For while on the one hand the attack was a slap in the face, on the other, among the Tuaregs, it is more a dose of confidence that will tell all the groups that there is no need to fear this enemy, that he can be defeated.
We have already seen in the past that in this country, a few military defeats can create a snowball effect and an opposition from the military to advance, to hold their positions, not to say to fight. So let's not assume that if 50 people are killed tomorrow, others will replace them and carry on as if all this had never happened.
Morale is low in this army, and the propaganda about Wagner's mercenaries and the new weapons has no doubt boosted confidence, but to see today that these Russian mercenaries are not really providing any protection, to see these Chinese armoured vehicles that we used to praise on TV being destroyed, to see that the air power has been conspicuous by its absence and mediocrity (crash), well for some it's a psychological cold shower that the propaganda will have a hard time making up for.
When Al Qaeda makes gestures of goodwill towards orthodox kouffars (yes, because it's claimed by Aqmi and Jnim).
And we, who are on the verge of crying "well done" for seeing Caucasians fall into the hands of "bearded men".
The world has changed a hell of a lot in a short space of time.
We can be proud of our 10 years of operations in the Sahel. We have never been the victim of such a disaster and we have held a good part of the Sahel at 5000 (excluding local auxiliaries who, to be honest, were very poor performers).
The only thing we can agree on is that a mixed FAMA/Wagner column fell into a wasps' nest, was unable to get through it, was unable to free itself and was finally reduced to size. It is not yet clear whether some were able to escape or not.
Yes, the result of this battle leaves a mixed feeling, certainly individuals with deplorable methods have eaten hard but it is to the advantage of jihadist scum that our soldiers have fought for 10 long years.
Rumours spread through pro-Russian channels that the Tuaregs were demanding a ransom of around $90,000 per living pax. Naturally, a fund was set up and the target donations were reached... before the Ukrainians who created it closed it down.
The terrorists are said to be ready to transfer the prisoners to Ukraine as a sign of support and solidarity.
In addition, the administrator of the famous Russian Telegram channel associated with the Wagner group "Grey Zone" was reportedly killed after an ambush in Azawad in Mali. As was Anton Elizarov.
And we, who are on the verge of crying "well done" for seeing Caucasians fall into the hands of "bearded men".
The world has changed a hell of a lot in a short space of time.
We can be proud of our 10 years of operations in the Sahel. We have never been the victim of such a disaster and we have held a good part of the Sahel at 5000 (excluding local auxiliaries who, to be honest, were very poor performers).
The only thing we can agree on is that a mixed FAMA/Wagner column fell into a wasps' nest, was unable to get through it, was unable to free itself and was finally reduced to size. It is not yet clear whether some were able to escape or not.
Yes, the result of this battle leaves a mixed feeling, certainly individuals with deplorable methods have eaten hard but it is to the advantage of jihadist scum that our soldiers have fought for 10 long years.
Rumours spread through pro-Russian channels that the Tuaregs were demanding a ransom of around $90,000 per living pax. Naturally, a fund was set up and the target donations were reached... before the Ukrainians who created it closed it down.
The terrorists are said to be ready to transfer the prisoners to Ukraine as a sign of support and solidarity.
In addition, the administrator of the famous Russian Telegram channel associated with the Wagner group "Grey Zone" was reportedly killed after an ambush in Azawad in Mali. As was Anton Elizarov.