France and its partners announced on Thursday 17 February the withdrawal of the Takuba and Barkhane operations from Mali. After several weeks of consultation, the leaders of European countries, Canada and African states met in Paris on the evening of Wednesday 16 February to discuss the future of operations and missions in Mali.
“Due to the multiple obstructions by the Malian transitional authorities, Canada and the European states operating alongside Operation Barkhane and within the Task Force Takuba deem that the political, operational and legal conditions are no longer met to effectively continue their current military engagement in the fight against terrorism in Mali”, they explain in a joint statement. In doing so, the partners “decided to commence the coordinated withdrawal of their respective military resources dedicated to these operations from Malian territory”.
The Gossi, Menaka and Goha outposts will be closed “in a coordinated manner with Malian forces and the UN Minusma mission” within four to six months, French President Emmanuel Macron told the media. During this period, France will maintain a support mission for Minusma. While France currently has 4,600 troops in the Sahel, including 2,400 in Mali, after the Malian withdrawal, 2,500 to 3,000 troops will remain deployed in the Sahel.
The EUTM and Minusma missions will also be evaluated and will evolve, according to the French president.
From Brussels, the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, announced that he had sent a mission to Mali to verify with the Malian authorities the conditions and guarantees under which the EU could consider whether or not to maintain its training missions EUTM Mali and EUCAP Sahel Mali. “The answer will come in the next few days”, he said.
Redeployment in the region
Although they are leaving Mali, the countries involved in the Takuba and Barkhane operations have expressed their willingness to remain engaged in the region, in close coordination with neighbouring countries, as the terrorist threat is still present and growing, especially in the Gulf of Guinea.
Europe and Canada will therefore continue their joint action against terrorism in the Sahel region, especially in Niger and the Gulf of Guinea, where Europe already has a CSDP mission (EUCAP Sahel Niger) and a coordinated maritime presence (Gulf of Guinea).
Political and military consultations have been initiated with the aim of agreeing the parameters of this joint action by June 2022. According to Mr Macron, the heart of the action will no longer be in Mali, but in Niger, in the tri-border region. “We are retaining the special forces in Burkina Faso and we are going to reorganise the African-European mechanism around the forces in Niger”, he explained.
The French President also announced that his country will continue to play a federating role where the military dimension is necessary and that it will keep the role of framework nation, but that there is a consensus to develop the modalities of action by involving and supporting the countries of the Gulf of Guinea more.
“We are re-examining together how we can most effectively respond to emerging threats. We need a global coalition against terrorism in Africa. Any initiative can only succeed with the armed forces of the countries in the region”, explained Nana Akufo-Addo, President of Ghana, adding that European nations could provide assistance to these armed forces.
For the President of Senegal, Macky Sall, who currently holds the presidency of the African Union, “the fight against terrorism in the Sahel cannot be the sole responsibility of African countries”. He said that the United Nations must assume its responsibility in this fight.
Beyond the military aspect, the French President felt that it was necessary to work more with the civilian population, which should not be reduced to the role of “victim” of terrorism, but also of “first line of defence”.
See the joint statement: https://aeur.eu/f/do (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant with Aminata Niang)