Military juntas in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, according to a senior U.S. military official, are now experiencing “buyer’s remorse” after ousting U.S. and French troops over the past three years and, to varying degrees, accepting Moscow’s help fighting al Qaeda and Islamic State insurgents. “They’re starting to ask for help—the Malians in particular,” said…
Mali has arrested dozens of soldiers suspected of plotting to overthrow the junta, which itself took power in the west African country in a coup, sources told AFP on Sunday. Since seizing the reins in Mali through back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, the west African country’s junta has ramped up repression of its critics…
By Anait Miridzhanian DAKAR (Reuters) -At dawn on June 1, gunfire shattered the stillness of Mali’s military base in Boulkessi. Waves of jihadist insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked group stormed the camp, catching newly deployed soldiers off guard. Some troops, unfamiliar with the base, which lies near Mali’s southern border with Burkina Faso, scrambled to find…
Amadou Bagayoko, a Malian guitarist and composer who with his wife, the singer Mariam Doumbia, formed Amadou & Mariam, inventing a broadly accessible sound that made fans of people worldwide who otherwise knew little about music from Africa, died on Friday in Bamako, Mali’s capital. He was 70. His death was announced by the Malian…
At least 43 people, mostly women, were killed after an informal gold mine collapsed in western Mali on Saturday, the head of an industry union said. The accident took place near the town of Kéniéba in Mali’s gold-rich Kayes region, Taoule Camara, the secretary general of the national union of gold counters and refineries, told…
For nearly a decade the French embassy in Bamako, the capital of Mali, was the political nerve centre of a counterterrorism operation that spanned five countries. The sprawling fortress still resembles a military base. But its guard towers and walls topped with razorwire are as much a relic of a bygone era as the French-built…
Three military-ruled countries have officially withdrawn from the West African regional alliance known as ECOWAS, the bloc said on Wednesday, defying pressure from the group to return the countries to civilian democratic rule. The alliance, the Economic Community of West African States, offers its members visa-free travel, favorable trade tariffs and access to a $702…
Chinese company Ganfeng Lithium has completed a major lithium processing plant in Mali – defying security challenges, a strict new mining code and a lithium supply market glut. China’s largest lithium producer, Ganfeng announced that the first phase of its Goulamina lithium mine, in the southern region of Bougouni, had gone live in mid-December. It…