Sahel Central News Today

October 19, 2022: In the northeast (south of Gao) IGSS (Islamic States in Greater Sahara) Islamic terrorists near the Niger border have taken advantage of the departure of French counterterrorism forces earlier this year by seizing and holding t

What divides Mali more than anything else is ethnicity and geography The dry (desert and semi-desert) north contains more than half of the territory but only about 12 percent of Mali's 20 million people In the southern third of Mali, where 88 percent o

The military government is now threatening to force the 15,000 UN peacekeepers out of the country unless the UN agrees to give the Mali military government control over what the peacekeepers can do The government is particularly angry at the way the pe

The military government has forced French counterterrorism forces out of the country, and withdrawn from the EU supported G5 Sahel Counterterrorism force Over the last few years, French voters grew discouraged about continuing to support peacekeeping in

The military government continues threatening to bring in Russian military contractors to replace French troops The reality is that Russia is too broke to provide foreign aid, and if you want Russian weapons or military contractors, you must pay f

Back in 2014 France established a counterterrorism force consisting of 3,000, and later 4,000 French special operations and support personnel to pursue Islamic terrorists that move around in the western Sahel (semi-desert areas of Mauritania, Mali, Nige