France and its security partners will withdraw all troops from Mali, European and regional leaders announced in a joint statement Thursday, after nearly a decade of fighting an extremist threat that has surged in recent years and as relations between the West African nation and its former colonial power collapse.
The departure is set to upend the international fight against one of the world’s fastest-growing insurgencies, raising questions about who will fill the security void left by Mali’s biggest defense ally.
France, Canada, European and regional states said in the statement that the move follows “multiple obstructions” by Mali’s authorities, adding that “political, operational and legal conditions are no longer met to effectively continue” military engagement in “the fight against terrorism in Mali.”
Troops will shift to neighboring countries as the conflict deepens, the announcement added. “We all reaffirm our strong will to continue our partnership with and commitment to the people of Mali over the long term.”
France now has about 4,000 soldiers in West Africa — the most of any one foreign partner — deployed to repel fighters who have proclaimed loyalty to al Qaeda and the Islamic State.
The trouble began in the Sahel, a vast stretch of land south of the Sahara, after the Libyan government disintegrated in 2011. Mercenaries hired by Moammar Gaddafi returned to their native Mali and pushed to create their own state through a shaky alliance with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
The menace has splintered and spread into formerly peaceful neighbors, primarily Burkina Faso and Niger, killing thousands of West Africans and forcing millions from their homes. Researchers estimate the government has lost access to approximately two-thirds of semi-arid Mali, which is about twice the size of Texas.
West and Central African forces have flagged that on their own, they lack funding and equipment to stop the bloodshed.
As the insecurity worsened, so did animosity toward leaders — and their Western partners. Protest movements have swelled across the Sahel, calling for presidents to step down and France to leave.
Thus sparked a chain reaction of military overthrows: Special forces officers toppled Mali’s president in August 2020 and again nine months later, pledging to restore safety. Their counterparts in Burkina Faso last month followed suit. (Guinea, largely spared the extremist violence, had its own coup d’etat in September 2021, when officers ousted a leader carrying out a maligned third term.)
Now West Africa is battling a “coup contagion,” analysts say. World leaders condemned the mutinous uprisings as attacks on villages and military posts gained steam.
The multinational effort against the Islamist extremists in West Africa began in 2013 when French forces teamed up with regional forces against fighters advancing on the capital, Bamako.
Early success unleashed jubilation: Malians draped the French flag over their balconies as they cheered on the French convoys that helped liberate cities across the north, including Timbuktu.
But since then, the extremists have regrouped and spilled into neighboring countries. Word of victories — the killing of several extremist leaders, for instance — couldn’t offset talk about deadly mistakes. Chief among them: A U.N. report last year that found a French airstrike in Mali’s center had killed 19 civilians.
And the popularity of Paris has plummeted in the country of 21 million. More than 85 percent of Bamako residents in an October survey by the Malian statistician Sidiki Guindo said they were “dissatisfied” with the French operation.
Civil groups have accused the French troops of making things worse, and people wave anti-French signs at regular demonstrations.
