Mali car suicide bomb blast kills four civilians, wounds four French soldiers

July 1, 2018  23H:25  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Rashida Adjani and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, BAMAKO

BAMAKO  - An attack on a military patrol in northern Mali on Sunday killed four civilians and wounded 31 others, including four French soldiers, Mali’s government and the French army said.

The ambush, which involved a car bomb explosion followed by gunfire, took place two days after Islamist militants killed at least six people during a raid on a military headquarters in central Mali, a country where French troops are helping combat jihadists across its vast desert reaches.

The deteriorating security situation a month ahead of a presidential election points to the difficulty international partners face restoring peace in Mali, which has become a launchpad for attacks by groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State across West Africa.

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Photos posted on social media showed black smoke billowing from an armored vehicle surrounded by debris on a sandy road.

“From hospital sources, the provisional record after the suicide attack against a Barkhane patrol in Gao today ... was 4 civilians dead and 31 seriously injured,” Mali’s Security Ministry said on Twitter.

Barkhane is the name of the near 4,000-strong French force stationed in its former colonies across the Sahel region.

French army spokesman Patrik Steiger said four French Barkhane soldiers were wounded during the explosion, which occurred close to three French vehicles. Mali’s Security Ministry previously said eight French soldiers were wounded.

A spokesman for Mali’s Defence Ministry, Boubacar Diallo, said a car drove into a joint Barkhane-Malian army patrol.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. But violence by Islamist militants has spread across the sparsely populated Sahel in recent years, slowly taking back control lost when French forces knocked back an uprising by Tuareg rebels and Islamists in 2013.

Western powers have provided funding to a regional force made up of soldiers from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania combating jihadists. But the so-called G5 force has been hobbled by delays disbursing the money and poor coordination between the five countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who last year complained that G5 was taking too long to set up, is due in Mauritania on Monday to discuss security in the region.

Sahel region: U.S. pledges up to $60 million aid for security

OCTOBER 30, 2017 / 20H:03  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Rashida Adjani and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, UNITED NATIONS/ABIDJAN

UNITED NATIONS/ABIDJAN - The United States has promised up to $60 million to support the Group of Five Sahel States (G5 Sahel) Joint Force’s counter-terrorism efforts, the State Department said on Monday.

The force - which will eventually comprise nearly 5,000 troops units from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania - is meant to counter a growing jihadist threat in West Africa’s arid Sahel region that includes groups linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State.

The U.S. support for the G5 force falls short of an expectation by France and others that Washington would back direct funding from the United Nations.

“We believe that the G5 force must be, first and foremost, owned by the countries of the region themselves,” said the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley in remarks to the Security Council, following news of the new cash commitment.

“We expect that the G5 countries will take on full regional ownership of the force within a period of three to six years, with continued U.S. engagement,” she said.

An ambush by unidentified militants earlier this month in Niger killed four U.S. Special Forces troops and threw a spotlight on American involvement in counter-terrorism operations in the region.

The funds pledge, which must now be discussed with Congress, will bolster the U.S.’s regional partners in their fight against Islamic State and other terrorist networks, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in the statement.

Washington is wary of funding the G5 through the United Nations at a time when the Trump administration is aiming to cut U.N. expenditures on peacekeeping operations around the world, and has indicated it prefers to support the force on a bilateral basis.

The G5 countries have set a first-year operating budget of just under $500 million, and about a quarter of that was committed prior to the U.S. announcement. A donors conference will be held in Brussels in mid December.