In the Sahel, northern rebels join forces against southern putschists

Faced with the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), formed by the juntas in power in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, the rebel groups active in the northern reaches of the latter two countries are seeking a union. From August 25 to 29, the Malian rebels of the Strategic Framework for Peace and Defense of the People of Azawad (CSP-PDA), at war against the regime of Colonel Assimi Goïta, met with emissaries of the Patriotic Liberation Front (FPL), a group created in the aftermath of General Abdourahamane Tiani’s coup d’état in Niger in July 2023 to demand the release of Mohamed Bazoum, the ousted president still detained by the putschists who overthrew him.

Together, the two rebel groups discussed the ” necessity of signing a mutual assistance pact in the event of aggression by the ESA States”the FPL said in a statement released on August 31. The Sahel States Alliance is a defense pact created in September 2023 by the three Sahelian juntas to assist each other. in the event of an attack on the sovereignty and integrity of the territory” of one of its members.

To counter them, the Nigerien and Malian rebel groups have come together. Their meeting, at the end of August, took place in a town that has become the symbol of the fight of the Malian rebels, mainly Tuareg and Arab, against the junta: Tin Zaouatine. In this town located in the far north of Mali, along the Algerian border, 47 Malian soldiers and 84 mercenaries from the Russian Wagner group, allied with Bamako, were killed at the end of July during clashes with the CSP.

Since the arrival in power of the junta of Colonel Assimi Goïta in Bamako in 2020, the fragile peace established by the Algiers agreement in 2015 has given way to a resumption of hostilities. In August 2023, the army launched a vast operation to reconquer the north of the country. At the height of multiple battles that left hundreds dead, Malian soldiers and Wagner recaptured Kidal in November of this year, a stronghold of the Tuareg independence rebellions that had shaken Mali since its independence in 1960.

During this offensive in Bamako, “The putschist regimes of Burkina Faso and Niger helped the Malian junta to fight us and massacre the civilian populationsexplains Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, spokesperson for the CSP. This also prompted us to extend our alliances to Niger.” Thus, Burkinabe drones have repeatedly pounded positions held by Malian rebels, such as at the end of August, in Tin Zaouatine. Twenty-one civilians, including eleven children, were killed in this air operation, according to the CSP. The Nigerien military, for their part, provided their Malian allies with logistical reinforcements, notably during the battle of Tessalit, in mid-October 2023.

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