Pushed towards the exit by the colonels in power since August 2020, France completed its withdrawal from Mali on August 15, 2022, more than nine years after the launch of its intervention against jihadist groups in this Sahelian country.
At the same time, the Malian authorities turned to Russia, and more particularly, according to Western countries in particular, to Wagner. Bamako denies, acknowledging only the support of Russian military “instructors”.
But it is Wagner that the “Support Group for Islam and Muslims” (Jnim in Arabic), the main coalition affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Sahel, has named in recent months at the head of its press releases.
“Wagner’s operations are mainly located in central Mali and mainly target the Fulani community, of which the Jnim presents itself as the protector. So in this dynamic, Wagner is really an enemy of the Jnim”, explains to AFP Héni Nsaibia , researcher at the Armed Conflict Location
“There have been many clashes between the Jnim and the Malian armed forces and Wagner who operate jointly,” he said.
“In a way, Wagner replaced France as a foreign force in the theater of conflict, even though the jihadists do not treat Wagner as Crusaders like French troops, but rather as mercenaries or criminal militia,” he says.
– “Ethnic war” –
The Jnim boasted at the end of October of having, thanks to an ambush in the Bandiagara region (center) against “the Malian army, Wagner’s mercenaries and pro-government militiamen in ethnic war against Muslims”, returned to their owners the cattle that they had taken from them, according to him.
For years, “jihadist groups have presented themselves as the defenders of the population against the army and its auxiliaries who, according to them, only kill civilians”, observes Boubacar Haïdara, researcher at the Bonn International Center For Conflict Studies (BICCS). .
The use of this “alibi to justify the violence they exercise”, according to him, is made easier for them by “the arrival of Russian elements”, coinciding with “information on exactions of civilians which are repeated and more and more more deadly”.
While the majority of the 860 civilians killed in Mali in the first half of 2022 were victims of jihadist groups, 344, or 40%, died during army operations, according to the UN.
“The population judges in relation to the abuses committed on civilians”, warns Binta Sidibé Gascon, vice-president of the Kisal observatory, which defends the interests of pastoral populations. “However, since the arrival of Wagner, in particular with what happened in Moura, we are witnessing an exponential increase in civilian victims”.
Some 300 civilians were massacred in March in this central locality by Malian soldiers associated with foreign fighters, possibly Russian, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW). The Malian army denies, claiming to have “neutralized” more than 200 jihadists.
The main Jnim leader in the region, the Fulani preacher Amadou Koufa, incriminated Wagner and the Malian army in a rare video in June, saying that among those killed in Moura were “only about thirty combatants”, the others being “innocent”.
“What will speed up awareness,” says the head of Kisal, “is that in the face of all these exactions on civilians, no reconquest of the territory is effective and unfortunately the situation is getting worse: increase in displaced persons, schools closed, humanitarian crisis…”
Nevertheless, Boubacar Haïdara notes that “many among the population do not believe at all that it is civilians who are killed”, and are receptive to the official discourse of the army rejecting “French calumnies to denigrate the Malian forces when they are doing more than Barkhane could do in nine years”.
Calling on Wagner turned out to be a “very bad choice” for the Malian authorities, with “an increase of about 30% in terrorist acts” over the last six months, the American undersecretary of state said at the end of October. Victoria Nuland.
On the other hand, Niagalé Bagayoko, president of the African Security Sector Network (ASSN), considers that “if the Malian government expected support from Wagner in terms of information warfare, from this point of view it can be satisfied with the results”.
“On Malian territory very largely, at least at the level of the capital and social networks”, she continues, “they have won the battle of public opinion against all Western partners”.
