The withdrawal of the military forces of France and other European countries from Mali after almost ten years of fighting with Islamist rebels will leave a security vacuum in that West African country that could be filled by jihadists and mercenaries from the private Russian security company Wagner, reports Radio Free Europe (RSE) writing of world media .
France and several of its Western allies announced on February 17 that they would begin a "coordinated withdrawal" of their military forces from Mali, accusing the junta that recently came to power of hampering anti-terrorist operations led by the French military in the Sahel region for the past decade. the times.
Jihadi groups have spread throughout the West African country and its neighbors, despite the efforts of a coalition of Western and African armies that tried to fight them, the paper said. Nevertheless, France, its partners in Europe and Canada "have taken the decision to withdraw their military presence in Mali," French President Emmanuel Macron said.
France sent troops to Mali in 2013 to counter attacks by Islamists who had seized towns in the country's north. The campaign was supposed to last just a few weeks, but nearly a decade later, thousands of French troops are still there, trying to fight an elusive enemy that, according to the New York Times, is growing in numbers despite France's claims that its forces have killed a number of jihadists. the leader.
Macron said that the decision to withdraw troops followed a breakdown in diplomatic relations due to growing hostility from Mali's ruling military junta, reports the BBC.
"We cannot continue military engagement with de facto authorities whose strategy and hidden goals we do not share," the French president said at a press conference in Paris.
Relations between France and Mali have deteriorated since the military came to power in a coup in August 2020, while, the British public service points out, tensions further increased last month when the junta abandoned an agreement to organize elections in February and announced that it would be in power until 2025
In December, more than ten Western countries also condemned the arrival of mercenaries, according to the BBC, from the controversial Wagner group in Mali. Macron warned that this group "essentially came to secure its economic interests and the junta itself."
The departure of the forces of France and its partners could disrupt the international fight against one of the fastest-growing insurgencies in the world, according to the Washington Post.
French bases in Mali are expected to be closed within the next six months. There are currently 2.400 French soldiers in the country, while in the whole of West Africa France has about 4.000 soldiers deployed to fight against rebels who have declared loyalty to the terrorist organizations Al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State.
The fall of the Libyan government in 2011 triggered problems in the Sahel as mercenaries hired by deposed leader Muammar Gaddafi returned to Mali and tried to create their own state through a shaky alliance with Al Qaeda, according to the Washington Post, adding that the danger began to spread and on neighboring countries, above all Burkina Faso and Niger, and thousands of people were killed in the violence while millions were forced to leave their homes.
The decision to withdraw could leave a security vacuum in the Sahel, where French-led troops have been fighting Islamist terrorist groups and suppressing ethnic conflicts for nearly a decade, the Wall Street Journal points out.
France began preparations to leave Mali after months of deteriorating diplomatic relations between the West and Mali's government, which took control after a military coup in May.
Mali's government then hired the Russian private security firm Wagner, prompting the European Union to impose sanctions on the coup leaders, while France suspended much of its financial support to the impoverished country to prevent those funds from being used to pay Wagner about $10 million a month.
Mali expelled the French ambassador earlier this year.
The diplomatic crisis in relations with Mali has led to hectic deliberations among European officials on how to prevent the country from becoming a haven for Islamist terrorist groups.
The crisis has also, according to the Wall Street Journal, dealt a blow to the European Union's ambitions to take responsibility for security in its wider neighborhood as it seeks unity in response to the crisis in Ukraine.
The mission in the Sahel - a large desert region from Chad in the east to Mauritania on the Atlantic Ocean - was supposed to be a display of European military cooperation with the participation of special forces from 10 European countries.
Some analysts say that the chaos in Mali could destabilize the entire Sahel and probably have consequences for Europe as well. Terrorist groups could use Mali as a base to carry out operations against governments in neighboring Niger, Chad, Mauritania or states to the south along the Gulf of Guinea, while smuggling networks could use the security gap to bring migrants to Europe.
With the end of France's longest counter-terrorist operation, huge parts of the desert in Mali will be left to jihadists and Russian mercenaries, the Times estimates.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said earlier this week that "Wagner now has 1.000" men in Mali, which he said was incompatible with a permanent French military presence.
France's withdrawal from Mali represents a humiliating end to its longest military engagement abroad since the end of the Algerian war in 1962, the Times said, adding that after thousands of deaths, including 53 French troops, Paris accepted that the campaign was at a stalemate.
Frustrated by the hostile attitude of Mali's ruling junta, the emergence of Russian mercenaries and anti-French sentiment even among members of the former colony's French-speaking elite, Macron is seeking to cut losses.
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