Macron announces end of anti-jihadist 'Operation Barkhane' in Africa's Sahel region

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesdayannounced an official end to the country’s nearly nine-year-long ‘Operation Barkhane’, its anti-jihadist operation in the Sahel region of Africa. The French President travelled to a naval base at Toulon in South France to make the announcement.

The development comes after the French soldiers withdrew from Mali on August 15, 2022. The development also marks a strategic shift for the French military forces deployed in the Sahel region of Western Africa, which are assisting several countries to contain jihadist insurgencies.

The Sahel region consists of the vast semi-arid and mostly inhospitable region of Africa, separating the Sahara Desert to the north and tropical savannas to the south. It includes parts of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, South Sudan, Eritrea, and Ethiopia.

The announcementwill have no impact on the French military presence in the Sahel region. About 3,000 French troops will remain deployed in Niger, Chad, and Burkina Faso.The goal is "to reduce the exposure and visibility of our military forces in Africa and to focus on cooperation and support; mainly in terms of equipment, training, intelligence and operational partnerships for countries that want it," an official from the French President office was quoted as saying by AFP.

These forces will operate in coordination with the concerned government armed forces to assist them in anti-jihadist operations.

The French troops' deployment was launched in 2013 when the jihadist insurgents took over much of northern Mali before being pushed away by the French and their regional partners.

At its peak,the French forces numbered 5,500.Mali's military leaders remain in power in the capital Bamako due to alleged collusion with the Russia-backed Wagner group.

The French army, along with its partners in the region consisting of Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Mauritiana, had left Mali in mid-August after nine years of continuous fighting with the Jihadist forces.

France's anti-jihadist operation in Mali: A dangerous quest for 'peace'

The local hostility to the French forces, stoked by disinformation on social media and in part by the country's own record of colonialism in the region, made France's 'Operation Barkhane', a dangerous quest for 'peace', as French forces repeatedly asserted. The last nail was the 2020 coup in Mali, whose leaders accused France of interference and turned to Russia's Wagner group for security. A recent report by the Strategic Research Institute of the Military School (Irsem), which is part of the French Ministry of Defense, described the "proliferation of disinformation content online, most often intended to denigrate the French presence and justify that of Russia" in Mali.

Macron to draw a line under anti-jihadist campaign

Reports say that Macron wants to draw a public line under the campaign and that France is not abandoning its fight against extremists in the region but its terms of engagement will be different.

"Our soldiers remain covered, protected, supported, administered in conditions that are satisfactory" but the official announcement is "necessary locally", a statement from the French Presidential office said.

"In the field of perceptions, Barkhane continues to occupy a very important presence on social networks. It is necessary to put a clear end to it in order to switch to another logic", it concluded.

(With inputs from agencies)

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