#BREAKING: France to start closing military bases in Mali by year-end, French President Emmanuel Macron says. #France #Mali #Sahel #G5Sahel #Barkhanehttps://t.co/OoQpVfBQPV
— africanews 😷 (@africanews) July 9, 2021
France 24: Macron announces France's Sahel military force will end in early 2022
France's anti-jihadist military force in the Sahel region, which today involves over 5,000 troops, will end in the first quarter of 2022, President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday.
Last week Macron announced a gradual drawdown of France's military presence in the Sahel and the end of the existing Barkhane operation. Now he has put a timeline on the end of the operation, while assuring that France is "not withdrawing" entirely from the region.
"We will put an end to Operation Barkhane in the first quarter of 2022 in an orderly fashion," Macron told troops on the eve of France's traditional Bastille Day celebrations.
Last week Macron said that he saw France's future presence as being part of a so-called Takuba international task force in the Sahel of which hundreds of French soldiers would form the "backbone".
It would mean the closure of French bases and the use of special forces focused on anti-terror operations and military training.
Read more ....
Update #1: West Africa: French President Macron Expands On Sahel Drawdown Plan (AllAfrica/Council on Foreign Relations)
Update #2: France to close three military bases in northern Mali by early 2022 (RFI)
WNU Editor: French support for the mission in the Sahel is low (see video below). France goes to the polls next year. French Macron wants this issue to be off the table as an election issue by then.
1 comment:
"French Macron wants this issue to be off the table as an election issue by then. "
Macron is a little pony boy. There is nothing in his statement about victory or defeat. There is no calculating how much defeat/withdrawal will cost.
Russia and Pakistan cut American supply lines to Afghanistan. Who has cut France's supply lines to the Sahel?
Pakistan trained, equipped, provided intel and logistics to the Taliban. They also embedded their spies(ISI) and paramilitary advisors not the Taliban. They also gave the Talban safe harbor. Which country in the Sahel has done the same for Al Qaeda? The closest country I can come up with is Nigeria whenever it has a Muslim leader (which makes Obama immensely happy).
Maybe pony boy Macron will run more commercials of him being super macho and being lowered onto a submarine from a helo?
War is expensive. So is losing your borderlands and having your caravans attacked.
I wonder if Macron ever knew or remembers that the Sahel went to shit shortly after Obama engaged in a smart war and broke Libya into little pieces.
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