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France and its allies have announced that they're pulling their troops out of Mali after a mission lasting nearly a decade, which began when Islamist rebels swept down from the north and threatened to overrun the government in 2013.  The insurgency was held at bay but the threat from jihadists, some linked to the Islamic State group, but mostly to al-Qaeda, persists across the Sahel region. 

France's president Emmanuel Macron said the decision to leave followed a breakdown in diplomatic relations, amid growing hostility from Mali's governing military junta. Relations between France and Mali, which is one of the world's poorest nations, have deteriorated since the army first seized power in a coup in August 2020.

Bulama Bukarti, an expert on the Sahel at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, says their departure will destabilise the region further, and the vacuum may well be filled with al-Qaeda or IS affiliated groups. He says that the junta have connections with Russia, and spent time in Moscow before the coup, and that Russia could turn Mali into a "client state". He goes on to say that the insurgency has been hard to contain as the governments have failed to tackle poverty and unemployment, which has fuelled unrest and meant more young people have been pushed to radicalisation.

Photo: French troops in Timbuktu, northern Mali, December 2021 Credt: Getty Images

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