Mali will increase the size of its army by about 50% in a recruitment drive this year aimed at uprooting jihadist groups, Prime Minister Boubou Cisse said on Wednesday. […]
Former colonial power France intervened in 2013 to drive back militants who had seized northern Mali in 2012, but groups allied with al Qaeda and Islamic State have sprung back. Much of central and northern Mali is largely lawless, and groups use the area as a base from which to launch attacks across neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso.
France has 4,500 troops in Mali and the wider Sahel and local international forces have also teamed up to contain the problem, but attacks have continued. Läs artikel