The last soldiers have left. After nearly a decade of French presence, the soldiers of Operation Barkhane have completed their withdrawal from Mali, announced the general staff of the armies on Monday August 15.
Operation Serval, jihadist attacks, coups d’etat, Russian paramilitary group… To understand everything about the French military commitment in the Sahel, franceinfo looks back on the 12 key dates of the past nine years.
1March 2012: AQMI takes several towns in northern Mali
Independent since 1960, the Mali knows in 2012 a series of Islamist attacks aimed at overthrowing President Amadou Toumani Touré and demanding the independence of Azawad, a desert area in the north of the country.
In March 2012, separatist rebels, quickly ousted by their Islamist allies associated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqmi), took control of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu.
2January 11, 2013: Operation Serval begins
France launched Operation Serval on January 11, 2013 to stem the progress of the jihadists. Paris deploys up to 5,000 soldiers (a year later, they will only be 2,500).
At the end of January, the French soldiers retake Gao, a town of 124,000 inhabitants, in the northeast of the country. The French army enters Timbuktu, 400 km west of Gao, without a fight, and seizes Kidal airport, north of Gao. On February 2, 2013, the President of the Republic, François Hollande, was welcomed to Timbuktu as a liberator. In July, a UN mission, Minusma, takes over from a pan-African force.
3August 1, 2014: Barkhane replaces Serval
On August 1, 2014, Operation Serval became Operation Barkhane, a regional mission, concentrated in the Sahel. A few months earlier, thn May, Tuareg and Arab rebel groups recaptured Kidal, a small town of 25,000 inhabitants located in the northeast of the country.
Operation Barkhane mobilizes 4,000 men, eight fighter planes, 300 armored vehicles, 300 logistics vehicles, 17 helicopters, transport planes and five drones. This is the largest deployment of French troops in overseas operations. This is part of a logic of partnership with five countries of the Sahel: Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad.
Almost a year later, in May-June 2015, the Algiers peace agreement was signed between the Malian government and the former Tuareg rebellion. But its implementation remains embryonic. The violence is spreading to the southeast and is now affecting Burkina Faso and Niger.
42015-2019: attacks increase
From 2015, attacks against Sahelian or foreign forces, as well as places frequented by foreigners, multiplied.
In March 2017, the jihadists linked to AQIM federated into a “Support Group for Islam and Muslims” (GSIM). At the end of 2019, thirteen French soldiers were killed in the accidental collision of two helicopters.
>> Burkina Faso: who is the GSIM, who claimed responsibility for the Ouagadougou attacks?
The Islamic State group in the greater Sahara (EIGS) is launching large-scale attacks against military bases in Mali and Niger. He was designated enemy number one at a summit in early 2020 between Paris and its G5 Sahel partners (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad).
52020: French forces kill jihadist leaders
At the beginning of June 2020, the head of AQIM, the Algerian Abdelmalek Droukdel, was killed by soldiers from Barkhane. In November, Bah Ag Moussa, “military leader” of GSIM, was in turn shot dead by French forces.
The jihadists continue their attacks. On August 9, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahel (EIGS) killed six French aid workers in Niger. The leader of the EIGS, Adnan Abou Walid al-Sahraoui, was killed in September 2021 by French forces. “This is another major success in our fight against terrorist groups in the Sahel”welcomes the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron.
6August 18, 2020: a first military coup
On August 18, 2020, Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, elected in 2013, was overthrown by a putsch after months of political crisis. Relations between Paris and Bamako deteriorate after a new coup on May 24, 2021. The military junta takes control of the country.
7June 10, 2021: Paris begins a gradual departure of French troops
On June 10, Emmanuel Macron announced the gradual departure of Barkhane’s 5,000 men. But, initially, a device of 2,500 to 3,000 soldiers will remain on the spot.
On September 25, 2021, the Malian Prime Minister accuses France of a “abandonment in mid-flight” with the reduction of the Barkhane force, justifying the need to “look for other partners”.
Quickly, Florence Parly, Minister of the Armies, wishes to deny “untruths”. “There is no French disengagement (…) When you have 5,000 soldiers and you disengage from three areas, and you intend to leave several thousand more, when you deploys state-of-the-art armored vehicles in the Sahel, this is not the normal attitude of a country that intends to leave”she justifies.
8December 2021: the involvement of a Russian paramilitary group causes trouble
At the end of December, around fifteen Western powers, including Paris, denounced the start of the deployment of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner in Mali. VShe group has been known since 2014 for its involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, then its intervention in Syria a year later, in the wake of the Russian army. The Wagner group would be financed by a Russian oligarch, Evguéni Prigojine. Nicknamed “the cook of the Kremlin”, the businessman, close to Vladimir Putin, made his fortune in catering before concluding numerous contracts with the Russian army.
>> Four things to know about the Russian paramilitary group Wagner and its opaque missions in Africa
On January 9, 2022, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) closed its borders with Mali and imposed an embargo on it, sanctioning the postponement of the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for February 27. The economic and financial embargo is a means of pressure on the military.
On January 24, a coup occurs in Burkina Faso. It is now the third country, among the four where Barkhane is deployed, led by a military junta.
10January 31, 2022: the French ambassador to Mali is expelled
At the end of January 2022, the ruling junta in Mali demanded that Denmark immediately withdraw its hundred soldiers who had recently arrived as part of the European special forces grouping Takuba, claiming that it had not given its consent to this deployment.
On January 31, Mali decides to expel the French ambassador. Paris “take note”, but the political opposition denounces a humiliation. The next day, February 1, Paris gives itself two weeks to decide with its European partners on the future of their military presence in Mali.
On February 8 and 10, three homemade bomb attacks killed at least nine people, including a 50-year-old Frenchman, in northern Benin. The February 8 ambush took place in a natural park, reports the environmental NGO African Parks.
On February 14, the head of French diplomacy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, estimated that a thousand Wagner mercenaries were now in Mali. He reaffirms that the conditions are not “more reunited” for the continuation of the Barkhane mission in this country.
11February 17, 2022: Emmanuel Macron formalizes the military withdrawal from Mali
France and its partners formalize their military withdrawal on February 17 at a mini-summit bringing together 40 of the 55 African Union member leaders. “France and its partners engaged in counter-terrorism missions, namely the participants in the Takuba task force, have taken the decision to withdraw their military presence in Mali”announced Emmanuel Macron.
But the French forces do not intend to completely leave the Sahelian region. “With the agreement of the Nigerien authorities, European elements will be repositioned alongside the Nigerien armed forces in the border region of Mali”said the French president.
12August 15, 2022: the last French soldiers of Barkhane leave Mali
On August 15, after nine years of presence, thehe last French soldiers of the Barkhane anti-jihadist force leave Mali. “This day at 1:00 p.m. (Paris time), the last detachment of the Barkhane force present on Malian soil crossed the border between Mali and Niger”, let the French general staff know in a press release, welcoming that this “major logistical military challenge” have been “raised in good order and in safety” and “in less than six months. This gradual departure of the French forces had however been driven from June 10, 2021 by Emmanuel Macron.
#Barkhane | This day, the last soldiers of @Barkhane_OP present on Malian soil have crossed the border between Mali and Niger. They came from the Gao desert operational platform, now transferred to the Malian Armed Forces. pic.twitter.com/mducbnMP6V
– French Army – Military Operations (@EtatMajorFR) August 15, 2022
“France remains committed to the Sahel, the Gulf of Guinea and the Lake Chad with all partners committed to stability and the fight against terrorism”, highlighted in another press release the French presidency. In nine years of presence in the Sahel, the French army has lost 59 soldiers.