Mali

Recurrent deadly encounters between soldiers and civilians across West Africa offer an instructive glimpse into the state of civil-military relations in the region.

The latest generation of African coupists offers definitive proof that the armed forces are the greatest victims of military rule.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post covers August 5 to August 11.

Recent developments in Mali point to an uncertain future.

Blaming external actors for the country’s woes accomplishes little for the Malian people.

The practical consequences of the U.S. Department of State adding five terrorist leaders operating in Africa to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists is likely to be limited.

French President Emmanuel Macron's decision to end Operation Barkhane, the French mission to fight jihadism in the Sahel, bears some resemblance to the ongoing removal of American troops from Afghanistan.

In April, Olivier Dubois, an experienced French journalist, was kidnapped in Gao, a Malian city on the Niger River. Though his disappearance was soon known by the Malian and French authorities, and by the non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders, nobody went public with the crime, ostensibly to facilitate the victim's quick release. Those efforts appear to have failed, and in early May a jihadi group with alleged ties al-Qaeda released a video. In it, the victims pleads with his family and the French authorities to secure his release. The French authorities are seeking to authenticate the video. This kidnapping follows a familiar pattern. A professional from a rich European country is a high-value target. (French citizens are particularly prized.) A video plea from the victim builds pressure in his or her home country "to do something." Secretive negotiations then lead almost inevitably to ransom being paid by the European government, a professional organization, or the victim's family—perhaps all three. Sometimes, the negotiations fail, and the victim is killed. This becomes more likely if authorities attempt to rescue the victim. The perpetrators often are unclear. Many claim to be part of a jihadi group, but others appear to be criminal gangs. At times, a criminal gang carries out the kidnapping and then auctions [PDF] the victim or victims. Who will pay them the most? A government entity or a jihadi group? The bottom line is that the kidnapping of Europeans or others that are well connected can be hugely profitable. How profitable is the stuff of rumor, because the amounts paid are almost never revealed. (In many European and African countries the payment of ransom is illegal.) Kidnapping is an important source of funding for terrorist and criminal groups. Compared to other parts of the world, terrorism in the Sahel is inexpensive. Profits from kidnapping could therefore cover most of the costs. As of May 11, the French journalist has not been released.

On March 17, around one hundred assailants, traveling on motorcycles and pickup trucks, killed thirty-three soldiers and wounded an additional fourteen in an attack near Tessit in central Mali. Peacekeepers operating under the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) assisted the evacuation of the dead and wounded; the French-led counterinsurgency force stationed in West Africa, Operation Barkhane, helped the Malian military secure the area after the attack. About four days later, perpetrators killed 137 in coordinated attacks in the Tahoua region of southwest Niger. The attacks took place near the border with Mali and also not far from Tillabéri, another Nigerien border region, where at least fifty-eight people were killed recently by gunmen on motorcycles. The Islamic State’s “West Africa affiliate” has apparently claimed responsibility for the Tessit attack. This likely refers primarily to the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), which is known to operate in the tri-border region where the frontiers of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso meet; reporting on the attacks at Tillabéri and Tahoua suggests ISGS involvement. If so, there are additional reports that militants from the Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA)—a splinter group of Boko Haram—provided reinforcements to ISGS in the Tahoua attack. That would indicate a new expansion of ISWA’s geographic scope: the hotbed of ISGS activity is located well over one thousand kilometers from Boko Haram and ISWA’s main area of operations in northeastern Nigeria. Much closer to the tri-border area, however, is northwestern Nigeria, where criminal and jihadi activities are converging as the Nigerian region becomes more insecure. Banditry, particularly kidnapping for ransom, is prevalent; Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau claimed responsibility for a mass kidnapping in Nigeria’s Katsina State in December last year, though his claim is unverified. With regard to the latest atrocities in Mali and Niger, it remains possible that some level of coordination took place between jihadi groups and groups regarded as primarily criminal in nature. But, if so, why? Victims were killed, not kidnapped, and looting does not seem to have been the goal. However, outside observers lack the granular knowledge of the region to divine the motivation for the attacks. Revenge or rivalry over control of smuggling routes are plausible explanations, as is jihadi militancy. Or, perhaps, elements of all three are present.  With regard to the counterinsurgency effort against the jihadis, Barkhane is considered the most effective fighting force in West Africa. But the French deployment is not popular in France; public opinion perhaps fears Barkhane could become bogged down in West Africa like the United States in Afghanistan. Looking to the 2022 presidential elections, President Emmanuel Marcon raised the possibility of a whole or partial military withdrawal, but he has of late backed away from his earlier comments. MINUSMA was established in 2013 after the French Operation Serval and the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) failed to stabilize Mali in the face of Islamist rebellion. The deployment under MINUSMA is large, with more than 16,000 total personnel as of January 2021. So, too, have been its fatalities: some 235 since it was established. Its mandate is “stabilization,” not peacekeeping per se, as there is no peace to keep. The recent string of violent episodes, along with rumored cooperation between jihadi cells, shows that stability and security in the Sahel are far from achieved, and that a significant French withdrawal or a winding down of MINUSMA could lead to jihadi and criminal forces severely threatening the survival of Mali's military-led government.

On January 19, French President Emmanuel Macron said that recent successes against jihadis and the pledge of additional EU troops makes it possible to "adjust" French military operations in the western Sahel. More likely is that growing opposition to the costs of French military operations and the upcoming French elections are driving Macron to the decision. The French military presence—Operation Barkhane—numbers 5,100 and cost a reported $1.1 billion in 2020. The French Ministry of Defense has signaled that France is likely to announce the withdrawal of 600 troops in February. Meanwhile, demonstrations have popped up in some West African capitals, with organizers denouncing the French presence as neocolonial. Macron's stated justification for a drawdown strains credibility. Jihadi groups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are far from defeated. On January 21, jihadi forces killed three Malian soldiers and three days later they killed an additional six. Concerns are rising that jihadi activity will spread further into Senegal and Ivory Coast. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, West and Central Africa already hosts some 7.2 million [PDF] “people of concern”—including refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced persons, returnees, and stateless persons— with many coming from or located in the Sahel. EU nations are augmenting Task Force Takuba in an attempt to bolster regional security, but the partnership is still getting off the ground. France is looking toward the presidential elections in 2022. Recent polling data shows that for the first time, a majority of French now oppose French military activity in West Africa. The negative, popular reaction to the deaths of thirteen French soldiers in Mali in 2019 illustrates the limited tolerance among the French public for military casualties. Macron is a shrewd politician, belying his technocratic image. His party fared poorly in 2020 municipal elections. Hence a French drawdown in West Africa makes domestic political sense. But, if the French drawdown is substantial, it seems likely that there will be an upsurge of Islamist activity; the armed forces of the weak Francophone West African states have become dependent on the French to hold the line. If the French leave, calls for greater American involvement will likely grow, especially if jihadis sweep toward beleaguered capitals and move to establish Islamist polities hostile to the West. Should such calls occur (as they did following French defeat in Vietnam a generation ago), the Biden administration would do well to proceed with great caution, given the complexity of the situation and the relative lack of granular knowledge about the Sahel in the United States.

Boris Johnson’s government is deploying three hundred British troops to the UN peacekeeping force MINUSMA in Mali. They will join some fourteen thousand other troops from fifty-six countries. The British troops will be deployed to Gao, in eastern Mali. According to their commander, General Nick Borton, they will be involved with reconnaissance in a radius of about ten miles around Gao. British deployment to Mali is unusual. The British government has usually left military involvement to the French in the latter's former colonies, including Mali. The Johnson government's motivation behind the deployment is unclear. Gen. Borton says the aim is to "support the political process," but that British forces will return fire if attacked. Yet what "political process" is underway is obscure, other than an ongoing rehash of sterile approaches that reflect a lack of will for fundamental change on the part of Mali's government and the militant jihadi goals of the insurgents. British media notes that the Johnson government sees the United Kingdom as a "force for good," and that belief may be some of the context. The British deployment is with UN forces, rather than those of the European Union which have been led by France. Some aspects of the decision to deploy were possibly influenced by the fact that negotiations for the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union have entered their final days. The British deployment decision is yet another sign of growing Western European awareness of the jihadi threat in West Africa. Gen. Borton says that the deployment is a consequence of "a combination of violent conflict and unprecedented migration." The general is likely referring to the growing numbers of internally displaced persons in Mali and elsewhere in the Sahel. But there remains at least some anxiety in Western Europe about a wave of refugees from Africa. West Africa is, indeed, "the near abroad" of Western Europe and hence a region of growing concern and involvement, of which the British deployment is a manifestation.

As a jihadi insurgency spreads across the Sahel, EU countries are responding to France's call for increased troop deployments in the region. A Franco-Estonian elite unit, styled Task Force Takuba, has arrived in northern Mali and is based near the city of Gao. Czech and Swedish forces are due to arrive soon. From media reports, the deployments go beyond the training and support of indigenous military. The contributing elements are from each country's elite special forces units, and they will also work with the regular French troops deployed since 2013 as part of Operation Barkhane. Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, and Greece have made commitments to send special forces to Mali, as has Italy, whose troops are expected soon. Parliamentary approval for deployment is usually required by each contributing country. The Czech parliament gave its assent to troop deployments in October. In a likely unrelated development, the United States has upped the billet of the U.S. Army Africa commander—which will merge with U.S. Army Europe—from a two-star to a four-star general. The change reflects the new emphasis that the U.S. Department of Defense is placing on the Sahel. As the French say, the Sahel is the "near abroad" of Europe and the European Union. The deployment of troops from EU countries in multinational units could be a harbinger of closer EU defense cooperation. An Estonian soldier, part of Task Force Takuba, is quoted in the media as saying that "so far there is no problem of interoperability" with the French military. Jihadi terrorism and insurrection have deep societal roots in the western Sahel that cannot be addressed by increased use of military force. However, security is deteriorating, and genuine reform—presuming political will for it exists among indigenous elites—requires security. Hence, it is hard to see a way forward that does not rely on increased military activity. Nevertheless, the expanded writ of Task Force Takuba makes it inevitable that there will be casualties. In that eventuality, it remains to be seen whether European and EU resolve will be maintained.