Posted on 01/08/2022 9:45:29 AM PST by BenLurkin
Mali’s army spokesperson has said Russian soldiers have deployed to the northern city of Timbuktu to train Malian forces at a base vacated by French troops last month amid persistent insecurity in a country where large swaths of territory are out of the government’s control.
The Malian government said late last year that “Russian trainers” had arrived in the country, but Bamako and Moscow have so far provided few details on the deployment, including on how many soldiers are involved or the Russian troops’ precise mission.
On December 23, a group of Western countries led by former colonial power France, which in 2013 intervened militarily to help push back advancing armed groups that threatened to seize the whole of Mali, sharply criticised what they said was the deployment of Russian mercenaries working for the controversial Wagner Group.
Mali’s government has denied this, saying the Russian troops are in the country as part of a bilateral agreement.
The withdrawal of French troops from Timbuktu, a city they helped to recapture from al-Qaeda fighters in 2013, is part of a significant drawdown of a previously 5,000-strong task force in West Africa’s Sahel region. The French government said it would refocus its military efforts on neutralising rebel operations, and strengthening and training local armies.
The decision came amid mounting political instability in Mali, where Colonel Assimi Goita carried out two coups in less than a year before being sworn in as the country’s interim president. The military-dominated government initially committed to holding elections by the end of February 2022, but has now proposed a transition period lasting between six months and five years.
(Excerpt) Read more at aljazeera.com ...
You are right.
Science and technology...
Apparently the place is rich in both gold and uranium.
Most of the people live in the southwest corner, which is more fertile. The north is in the Sahara and has an Islamist separatist movement. Timbuktu is on the southern border (the Niger River) but is the largest town near the northern fighting, so that’s why the Russians are there and not in the capital city of Bamako which is in the southwest also.
Gold and uranium. Where’s Bond?
Well, the blacks haven’t done anything useful with it ever.
Russia won’t attack the US. That’s a joke! Very defensive in nature unless asked to come in and help.
China is there now.
China is building plenty of railway roads, ports etc under China’s Belt and Road Initiative , but they are not running any country. The Africans are very touchy on that.
This topic was posted , thanks BenLurkin.
Tim****ed II.
They get “asked in” by the “government” they installed in an earlier coup. The Russians and their earlier manifestation the USSR with its earlier promotion of anticolonial Marxism are largely the reason that the place is a perpetual shithole. And now, add Chinese Maoism...
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