September 5, 2024: As of this year, Russia has increased its efforts to influence operations in Africa that cause political and economic problems for NATO countries. Russian troops have been increasingly active in Africa since 2018. Even with the problems Russia is having in Ukraine, their operations in Africa continue to succeed. This actually helps them in Ukraine because NATO nations depend on raw materials from Africa, while Russian military operations in Africa are disrupting shipments to Western Europe. Currently Russia is believed to have about a thousand mercenaries operating throughout Africa.

For example, in early August 2024, Russian and Malian soldiers in northern Mali suffered heavy casualties fighting CSP rebels. CSP stands for the Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad, or CSP-DPA. Malian soldiers backed by the Wagner Group Russian mercenaries have been cooperating for over five year and their joint operations are successful most of the time.

CSP was formed in 2021 and mainly consists of Tuaregs, a North African Berber group that dominated the region for over two thousand years until European colonial forces showed up in the early 19th century. The Tuaregs put up a fierce resistance to the French and were not defeated in Mali until 1905. The Tuaregs continued to feud with their North African and sub-Saharan African neighbors. The colonial powers left most of Africa in the 1960s. This was bad for the Tuaregs, who are outnumbered by the people of Niger, Mali, Algeria, Libya, and Burkina Faso, countries the Tuaregs used to dominate. The French colonial governments used the Tuaregs as their enforcers and this backfired on them when the French left and the newly independent governments of Niger, Mali, Algeria, Libya, and Burkina Faso sought to suppress Tuareg power in the region. This effort is still underway as Tuareg power and influence continues to decline. An example of this continued resistance was the recent clashes with Tuareg militias in northern Mali that left over a hundred Malian troops and Russian mercenaries dead.

In July 2024, the opposition political parties in the landlocked African nation of Mali finally received some cooperation from their transitional military government. On July 10, 2024, Assimi Goïta, the interim president of Mali told opposition political parties they could resume operations after a three-month suspension imposed in April. The opposition parties were angry that Goïta reneged on his promise to retire from government by March 2024.

By allowing a revival of planning for national elections, Mali could finally look forward to the return of democratic government that would be elected and effective.

Mali is in northwest Africa just south of the Sahara desert. Its northeastern neighbor Algeria is where drug smugglers move their cargoes from ports in Guinea or Ivory Coast north via Mali and Algeria, and then to markets in Europe and the Middle East. Islamic terrorist groups handle the smuggling that passes through Mali.

In 2023 and 2024 the economic and political situation in Mali worsened, with more Islamic terrorist violence and growing areas of northern and central Mali coming under the control of Islamic terrorist groups. The Mali army and a small number of Russian Wagner Group military contractors have been unable or unwilling to carry on with that effort or prevent the Islamic terror groups from crossing the Niger border and advancing into Mali. The terrorists include groups affiliated with al Qaeda, an alliance called JNIM (Jama’ah Nusrah al Islam wal Muslimîn, or Group for the support of Islam and Moslems), and the more violent groups like ISGS (Islamic States in Greater Sahara), which is one of the two ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) groups in the region. When they showed up in 2018, ISGS operated mainly in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, especially the area where the three borders met. Until recently those Islamic terrorists were only a problem, but now they are a real threat to the normally well defended capitals of all three countries. Islamic terrorist violence in northern Mali has left over a hundred dead each month the fighting continues as does the advance of the Islamic terrorists into Mali and its capital Bamako

In central Mali’s Mopti region, thousands of civilians have been blockaded by Islamic terrorist groups angry over the way locals have cooperated with the army against Islamic terrorists.

Back in September 2023 representatives from Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso met in the Mali capital Bamako to work out details for forming AES (Alliance of Sahel States). The alliance is meant to improve security for all these nations. Currently Islamic terror groups are attacking all AES members. Burkina Faso is the worst hit, with about 40 percent of its territory controlled by Islamic terrorists. Mali and Niger fear the same fate will befall them. Recently, AES was formally established July 6th, 2024, as an anti-French and anti-ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States).

The Mali government forced the French and African G5 peacekeepers out by the end of 2021. In 2017 the prior Mali government, Chad, Niger, the Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso agreed to form a new G5 counter-terrorism force that would work in cooperation with the similar but larger and better equipped French force that had been operating in the Sahel since 2014. The Sahel is the semi-desert area south of the Sahara Desert that covers much of northern Africa.

Back then the French concluded that the Sahel was still troubled by thousands of Islamic terrorists and that this situation could not be taken care of quickly. In order to maintain pressure on the Islamic terrorists, France established a special force of 3,000 troops to fight Islamic terrorists throughout the Sahel. In practice this meant just part of the Sahel and included Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso. This French force grew to some 4,000 troops equipped with 200 armored vehicles, 20 transport and attack helicopters, six jet fighters and three large UAVs. There were also two twin-engine C-160 air transports available for use within the Sahel. Supplies and reinforcements were regularly flown in using long-range transports like the C-17 belonging to NATO allies, especially the U.S. and Britain.

From the beginning the French force included a thousand French troops in Mali and the rest dispersed to other Sahel bases and ready to quickly move anywhere in the region where Islamic terrorist activity had been detected. The G5 nations already cooperated by sharing intelligence and providing quick access to their territory by the French force. In addition, the Americans provided satellite and UAV surveillance and other intel services, especially analysis and access to nearly all American data on Islamic terrorist activities in the region. Each of the G5 member countries contributed 500 to 2,000 personnel consisting largely of special operations troops. Many of these troops had already worked with their French counterparts or been trained by French or American special operations advisors.

All this was meant to keep the Islamic terrorists in the Sahel weak and disorganized. That worked until the current Mali military regime ordered the French/G5 force out. AQIM (Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), which has been around since 2007, was still in business as gangsters smuggling drugs and illegal migrants north and getting support from Islamic terrorists in Europe and the Persian Gulf. Islamic terrorists continued to carry out attacks in Mali, mainly the north and the G5 states to let the world know that Islamic terrorists are still present in the area.

The Mali population is now about 23 million and the economy is one of the worst in the world, with millions of Malians barely surviving on foreign aid. There is less foreign aid because Mali has not been able to prevent gangsters or Islamic terrorists from stealing the aid to sell on the market for cash to finance their operations. There are other armed groups like, like tribal militias and rebellions soldiers that interfere with foreign aid distribution. This chaotic situation has been going on since 2012, when a separatist rebellion in the north was defeated. Continued high levels of corruption, ethnic rivalries and Islamic terrorism kept Mali from achieving a lasting peace and much prosperity.

In 2021 the situation got worse when there was another military coup. The Mali military has staged three government takeovers since 2012. One, in May 2021, was an internal dispute within the military. Since the May coup foreign donors have warned that most of the foreign aid will stop coming if Mali does not carry out a significant reduction in corruption, government ineffectiveness and overall instability. None of these three military takeovers were about corruption, but rather anger at the corrupt politicians stealing money meant to finance operations against Islamic terrorist and separatist minorities in the north. The colonels running the military government are unwilling to step down and are trying to make it on their own, despite the large number of UN peacekeepers and French troops dealing with the Islamic terrorist problem up north.

As of early 2024 the chaos remains the same even though some military training detachments from the European Union and Russia operate. Russia is also involved in several economic development projects, like a solar power plant The 15,000 UN peacekeepers were gone by the end of 2023. The Mali government, run by rebellious army officers, doesn't want any UN personnel in the country to witness and record the crimes the military government continues to commit. The only thing keeping the Mali military government operating is taxes from the gold mines. These were developed and continue to be operated by foreign firms and recruit their own security personnel to guard the mines and the convoys taking the gold out of the country.

Russian mercenaries are also active in the CAR (the Central African Republic) and eastern Congo, where many essential raw materials are mined for foreign customers. Eastern Congo provinces like North and South Kivu are the center of all this mining and fighting, and the Russians are now involved unofficially but very effectively. Russia is also active in Libya, which has a North African coastline and enables Russia to supply its mercenaries in Libya as well as ship out local raw materials.