In what looks like a
loss of will and abdication of responsibility, France’s President Macron
announced on February 17 that French troops are being withdrawn from Mali, the
former French colony. Leading French
newspaper Le Monde commented: “It is an inglorious outcome of an armed
intervention that began in euphoria and which ends, nine years later, against a
backdrop of crisis between Mali and France.”
Macron’s justification is that relations with the military junta
that took over Mali in 2020 have broken down: "We cannot remain militarily
engaged alongside de facto authorities whose strategy and hidden aims we
do not share." The junta had gone
back on an agreement to organize an election in February, and proposed holding
power until 2025.
Macron’s decision has
profound implications not only for Mali but for the whole Sahel, the vast band
of territory running coast to coast across Africa, just south of the Sahara,
home to nearly 100 million people. The
zone encompasses areas in a range of countries – just how many is open to
dispute – from Senegal and Mauritania in the west, to Sudan and Eritrea in the
east. Ever since the defeat of Islamic
State (IS) and its caliphate in Syria, the Sahel has become a jihadist hotbed,
where the fighters of extremist Islam have been assembling in ever-growing
numbers, many under the black flag of IS.
For years three
international forces have been trying to stem the advancing tide of Islamist
extremism – one under French control, one under the UN, and the third drawn from
the governments of the region.
Independently and collectively they have failed. A total of 25,000 foreign troops are currently
deployed in the Sahel region. They include about 4,300 French soldiers, the UN
peacekeeping mission established in 2013, and an EU military training mission
that aims to improve the Malian military’s capacity in fighting armed rebels.
The security crisis
started in 2012, when an alliance of armed Islamist groups took over northern
Mali. France, the former colonial power,
stepped in to stop their advance toward the capital, Bamako, which could have
resulted in a total collapse of the Malian state. For some time French troops were able to
control the situation, but gradually armed jihadist groups began expanding
their reach across the region. According to the UN, attacks in Mali, Niger and Burkina
Faso have increased fivefold since 2016.
Many Islamist groups are
involved, but the two main ones are the al-Qaeda-linked JNIM (Jama'at Nasr
al-Islam wal-Muslimin), and the IS-affiliated ISGS (Islamic State in
the Greater Sahara). Despite repeated
French airstrikes, both have expanded their reach beyond their strongholds in
northern Mali to unleash bloodshed across the region. Accounts of a succession
of mass atrocities and ruthless massacres of civilians in Niger, Burkina Faso,
Chad and Mauritania make for horrifying reading. The UN Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in its account of the violence in
the Sahel in 2021, reports that the two main jihadist groups – JNIM and ISGS – also
turn on each other, from time to time.
In July 2017, France, Germany and the EU announced the launch of the Sahel Alliance. They were joined by a swath of European nations, a number of international banks and the UN Development Program.
In September 2019 leaders of ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States), in recognition of the terrorist attacks sustained by a number of West African countries, announced a billion-dollar plan to help in the fight against armed groups. The financial aid was expected to run between 2020 and 2024.
A France-Sahel summit in
January 2021 ended with leaders agreeing to the creation of a new structure
aimed at bringing the two parties' forces together under a single command. The idea was to facilitate joint operations
and improve intelligence-sharing. In
support, France announced in early February that it was expanding its
4,500-strong military presence in the region by an additional 600 troops. There have been other initiatives designed to
bring the Islamist-inspired terror in the Sahel under control.
All this has been
imperiled by Macron’s withdrawal, especially since eight members of his
Alliance have decided to follow his lead.
Russian President
Vladimir Putin has not refrained from using the chaotic situation in the Sahel
to his advantage, especially since European nations are so heavily
involved. According to media reports,
the rogue Mali government has been using the services of the hugely
controversial Russian mercenary group Wagner to shore up its position. As a result Putin has established a foothold
in central Africa, and is a prime party in chasing Macron out of what was once
clearly a French sphere of influence.
None of which augurs well for Franco-Russian relations, the future of
Mali or the Sahel region as a whole.
Even though the
remaining allies, weakened by France’s withdrawal, have undertaken to continue fighting
terrorism in the Sahel region, including in the Gulf of Guinea, there is no
doubt that Macron’s withdrawal is seen by the IS as a major victory. The French president has opened the Sahel
region to further infiltration by jihadist groups and possible conquest, as in
Syria and Iraq, by Islamic State.
https://www.eurasiareview.com/25022022-france-opens-the-way-for-islamic-state-oped/
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