Mali

The United States on Monday formally handed its last military base in Niger over to the ruling military junta, completing a pullout ordered by Niger’s rulers in March.

PARIS (AP) — Israel’s national anthem was loudly jeered before its soccer team kicked off play at the Paris Olympics against Mali on Wednesday night.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Assimi Goita, the interim president of Mali, to talk about building a closer relationship.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a deadly ambush on a military convoy in Niger, in which 23 soldiers were killed and 17 wounded.

A Malian national has been detained after three people were injured Saturday in a knife attack at Paris’s Gare de Lyon railway station.

The military juntas ruling the nations of Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso issued a joint statement on Sunday announcing their exit from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Christians around the world found themselves “easy targets” for both destabilizing terrorist groups and insecure dictators, the head of a global Christian aid organization told Breitbart News this weekend.

Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso signed a mutual defense agreement called the “Alliance of Sahel States” on Saturday, committing all three juntas to defend each other if any of them is attacked. The pact also requires each country to help suppress armed uprisings in the others.

The Pentagon said on Thursday it will “reposition” troops and equipment in Niger, and withdraw some “non-essential personnel,” due to “an abundance of caution” as the security situation deteriorates. 

Russian officials on Monday appointed Gen. Andrey Averyanov, head of covert offensive operations for Russian military intelligence, to supervise the mercenary Wagner Group’s valuable operations in Africa following the reported death of its founders, Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin, in a plane crash last week.

The founder and leader of the Wagner Private Military Company (PMC) Yevgeny Prigozhin resurfaced on Monday in what appeared to be his first video production since a failed attempt to oust the leaders of the Russian Defense Ministry in June, urging “real heroes” to join the mercenary organization.

Rhissa Ag Boula, a former leader in Niger’s Tuareg uprisings three decades ago, announced on Wednesday he is forming a Council of Resistance for the Republic (CRR) to oppose the ruling junta and restore President Mohamed Bazoum to power.

The U.S. Department of Defense confirmed on Tuesday that American troops remain in Niger and have no imminent plan to leave, though they remain in “clearly a not-normal situation” following the head of the presidential guard staging an attempted coup d’etat against President Mohamed Bazoum.

The governments of Burkina Faso and Mali issued statements on Monday defending the military coup in Niger last week, stating that any military intervention by democratic neighbors to oust the coup leaders in Niger would be a “declaration of war” against them, as well.

The surprising and short-lived mutiny by Wagner Group founder Yevgeny Prigozhin on June 24 brought new attention to the shadowy mercenary organization, which has been active in Africa and the Middle East for many years.

The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday announced sanctions against four companies linked to the infamous Wagner Group and its founder Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday that thousands of mercenaries from the Wagner Group will remain deployed in Africa, even though Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin led a mutiny against the Russian military over the weekend and then sought refuge in Belarus with some of his forces.

The Pentagon is scrambling to contain the damage from alleged intelligence leaks that revealed Ukraine’s military vulnerabilities in its war with Russia as well as embarrassing claims regarding some of the U.S.’s allies.

French President Emmanuel Macron has announced that he will be reducing the number of French troops stationed in Africa while turning military bases into “academies”.

Latin American and African nations made up the bulk of the small resistance on Thursday against condemning Russia on the anniversary of its “special operation” against Ukraine during a vote at the United Nations General Assembly.

The depiction of French soldiers as trying to steal ‘vibranium’ has prompted fury from the country’s real-life armed forces minister.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) reported this week that sub-Saharan Africa has become “the new global epicenter of violent extremism,” accounting for half of the world’s terrorism-related deaths last year. On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Mali, one of the four African nations with the highest number of terrorism deaths, in a bid to extend Moscow’s influence over Africa by helping the ruling junta fight jihadi rebels.

France has 400 special forces soldiers stationed in junta-ruled Burkina to battle an Islamist insurgency, but relations have deteriorated.

Britain is withdrawing its peacekeepers from Mali, saying the country´s reliance on Russian mercenaries is undermining stability.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday formally announced the “end of the Barkhane operation,” France’s decade-long mission against jihadis in the Sahel region of Africa.

After taking a beating in the Women’s FIBA World Cup, a couple of teammates on the team from Mali decided to beat each other.

An African migrant, who allegedly wanted to return to his native country, entered a police station and attacked several police officers.

A 28-year-old man from Mali has been indicted for raping prostitutes in the no-go Paris suburbs of Seine-Saint-Denis last month and robbing them afterwards.

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) – Mali’s foreign minister is accusing France of having colluded with the same Islamic extremists that it spent nearly a decade fighting until its troops departed earlier this week, an allegation sharply denied by the French government.

Pro-government protesters in the Malian capital of Bamako unfurled Russian flags and banners with slogans such as “Down with France” in a bizarre demonstration on Friday. 

(AFP) — After nine years deployed in Mali, France is organising a drawdown, with troops preparing to leave the last of three bases in the far north of the insurgency-hit and poverty-wracked country.

A Colombian nun kidnapped and held hostage by a Mali affiliate of Al-Qaeda in 2017 was recently freed, the office of the Malian presidency announced Sunday.

A local affiliate of al-Qaeda ambushed the convoy of an Australian-owned gold mine in Mali on Tuesday, killing five gendarmes guarding the transport and injuring four others, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly expressed her government’s growing frustration with the Mali junta on Tuesday, railing that the junta’s reluctance to permit elections on schedule was jeopardizing counterterrorism efforts in the volatile region and disrespecting the sacrifices made by French soldiers.

(AFP) — The U.S. and French defence chiefs signed a new “roadmap” for cooperation between their special operations forces Friday as both seek to build international efforts to counter non-state threats like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

BERLIN (AP) — The United Nations said 12 German troops and a Belgian soldier serving in the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali were wounded Friday in an attack in the country’s restive north.