Jun 26, 2020 | Mali, Menas Associates, Sahara
Mali is facing an unprecedented — and some might say long overdue — political crisis. June witnessed two massive demonstrations in Bamako, numbering tens of thousands of people, demanding the resignation of 75-year-old President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK). Exactly...
May 20, 2020 | Menas Associates, Sahara
The latest issue of Sahara Focus is dominated by credible reports that the regional national armies — notably those of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso — have been escalating a campaign of terrorising the Sahel’s civilian population. Officially it is designed to root out...
Apr 23, 2020 | Menas Associates, Sahara
The 23 March attack by Boko Haram’s Bakura Doron group on the Chadian army garrison on the Bohoma peninsula and the army’s large and very successful retaliation has shifted the focus of attention on the Sahel’s jihadism from the three borders region — between Mali,...
Mar 31, 2020 | Menas Associates, Niger, Sahara
There is an extraordinary parallel between Niger’s current defence ministry corruption scandal and those in Mali which led to the 2012 coup d’état. In Mali the army was quickly put to flight by the Tuareg rebels and Islamists because it was ill equipped and, in...
Feb 27, 2020 | Menas Associates, Sahara
The latest issue of Menas Associates’ Sahara Focus monthly reports concentrates on how France can redress the escalating negative perceptions of its activities in the region. We believe that if this is done it is possible that the Sahel could finally begin to reverse...
Oct 31, 2019 | Mali, Menas Associates, Sahara
The root of the failure of France’s Operation Barkhane in the Sahel is Paris’ inability to understand not just the political stakes but also the motivations that push hundreds of young people to join jihadism. Since France sent its troops to Mali in January 2013,...
