When Agadez’s army barracks was hit by a suicide explosion on May 23rd the Nigerien bad dream seemed like it had finally come true. For many Nigeriens it has been a case of when rather than if the crisis in

Read the rest of Niger’s bad dream approaches as islamists set sights on Niamey – By Celeste Hicks »

When Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported late last month that Malian authorities had broken up an alleged cell of seven fighters from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO, in French) in March in Bamako, it seemed to

Read the rest of Mali’s Sleeper Cell – By Andrew Lebovich »

A little over a year ago, a few friends met to hang out online and talk about the political crisis in Mali (the text was published here and entitled ‘Mali: How Bad Can it Get?’). We thought of this as

Read the rest of Mali: Which way forward? A chat with Bruce Hall, Baz Lecocq, Gregory Mann and Bruce Whitehouse »

International actors have dealt with the crisis in Mali in many ways. In a recent brief, Lori-Anne Théroux-Bénoni (Institute of Security Studies Dakar) listed its four phases. The first responses were regional (with the ECOWAS mediation) and African (AU after

Read the rest of Waiting for Blue Helmets? Prospects for a UN Mission to Mali – By Isaline Bergamaschi »

Last week marked the anniversary of the coup in Mali, when a group of soldiers, headed by Captain Amadou Sanogo, moved against President Amadou Toumani Touré. Much, to put it mildly, has happened since. Touré remains in exile and there

Read the rest of Mali: one year on… could they see the coup coming? – Andrew Lebovich »

Bamako, March 2013 “If he returns to Gao, people will make kebabs out of him,” a friend told me with a laugh over lunch in his home. He was referring to a prominent businessman who left the northern Malian city

Read the rest of Mali’s Bad Trip: Field notes from the West African drug trade – By Andrew Lebovich »

Recent and still unconfirmed reports of the killings of top leaders of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb underscore tangible advances made by French and African forces in rolling back the violent jihadist onslaught that began in Mali over a

Read the rest of Mali: Listening without Drones – By Gregory Mann and Bruce Whitehouse »

Having worked as a journalist for 33 years and having taught journalism and analysed the processes and performance of journalism for the last five, it is very revealing watching and analysing the development of major stories.  There have been two

Read the rest of Framing news in Africa – how journalists approach stories and reinforce stereotypes – By Keith Somerville »

Retaking the north was the easy part. Now Mali faces guerrilla attacks, reportedly increasing cooperation between rebel groups, ‘the Tuareg problem’, and a divided government. Early on during the French intervention which began in January 2013, many journalists in the

Read the rest of Mali: Why the Hardest Part is Yet to Come – By Imad Mesdoua »

A few weeks ago, most British journalists, politicians and foreign policy watchers would have had difficulty accurately positioning Mali on the map or naming its capital city (Bamako). They would certainly have been unable to bandy around the names of

Read the rest of Mali: dragging the west back in to the War on Terror – By Magnus Taylor »