TIG Post

Tag: Russian paramilitary group Wagner

  • U.S. sanctions three colonels from Mali for supporting Wagner organization

    U.S. sanctions three colonels from Mali for supporting Wagner organization

    For having “facilitated the deployment and expansion” of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner‘s actions in Mali, the United States on Monday slapped economic sanctions against three Malian officers, among them the current Minister of Defence.

    Three Malian army personnel are the focus of these sanctions: Colonel Sadio Camara, Minister of Defence and French national, Colonel Alou Boi Diarra, and Lieutenant-Colonel Adama Bagayoko, both Air Force officials.

    According to a statement from the US Treasury, there is “evidence showing that these Malian officials contributed to the malicious activities of the Wagner group in Mali”.

    The Wagner Group’s entrenchment in Mali during the last two years has been exposed by today’s action, according to important Malian officials. Brian Nelson, the under secretary of the Treasury for financial and terrorist intelligence, was quoted as saying in the statement.

    “These officials have made their people vulnerable to the Wagner Group’s destabilising activities and human rights abuses while paving the way for the exploitation of their country’s sovereign resources to benefit the Wagner Group’s operations in Ukraine,” he continued.

    These three officials are not allowed to conduct business with American citizens or firms, and their American assets have been blocked.

    Washington claims that since the Wagner group arrived in Mali in December 2021, there have been 278% more civilian casualties there, particularly as a result of actions conducted by the Malian armed forces alongside members of the Wagner group.

    The United States imposed economic penalties on this group in June 2017 and subsequently renewed them in January 2018.

    Following Yevgeny Prigojine’s 24-hour insurrection in Russia in June, Wagner’s future, who fought in the Ukraine and whose presence has been confirmed in various African nations as well as Syria, is in doubt.

    Moscow stated that the “countries involved” will determine its future in Africa.

  • French strategy in Africa “finalized within six months”

    French President Emmanuel Macron has made official the end of the ‘Barkhane’ operation in Mali and detailed that the country’s new ‘roadmap’ on the African continent will be “finalized within six months”, as part of a reorganization of its operations following tensions with the military junta in Bamako.

    “We will launch in the coming days a phase of exchanges with our African partners, our allies, and regional organizations to evolve together the status, format, and missions of the current French military bases in the Sahel and West Africa,” he said in presenting the new French defense strategy.

    “This strategy will be finalized within six months … It is essential and it is one of the consequences that we draw from what we have experienced in recent years in the entire Sahel region,” he explained.

    The French army left Mali in August, after nine years of presence, pushed by the ruling junta which is now working – even if it denies it – with the sulphurous Russian paramilitary group Wagner.

    However, it remains in the region and continues to fight against jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group, which are gradually expanding their activities to the Gulf of Guinea countries.

    Source: African News

    The announcement of the end of Barkhane has no immediate impact on the French military presence in the Sahel, which includes about 3,000 troops in Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso, after having numbered up to 5,500 men at the height of its deployment.

    “Our interventions must be better limited in time (…) We do not have the vocation to remain engaged without a time limit in external operations,” justified the head of state.

    “Our military support to African countries in the region will continue, but according to the new principles that we have defined with them,” he said. “It will be declined at the level of each country according to the needs that will be expressed by our partners.

    Paris has to deal with an increasingly hostile African public opinion, within which the influence of rival powers, led by Moscow, is growing via social networks and official media.

    The idea from now on is to continue to act, but with discretion. No new names have been given to the troops now deployed.

    “Our soldiers remain covered, protected, supported, administered in conditions that are satisfactory” but the official announcement is “necessary locally”, explained Tuesday at the Elysee.

    “In the field of perceptions, Barkhane continues to occupy a very important presence on social networks. It is necessary to put a clear end to it to be able to switch to another logic,” the same source said.

     

    Source: African News