Mali is located in Africa. The history of the territory of modern Mali may be divided into:
The Niger Armed Forces includes military armed force service branches, paramilitary services branches and the National Police of Niger. The Army, Air Force and the National Gendarmerie are under the Ministry of Defense whereas the National Guard and the National Police fall under the command of the Ministry of Interior. With the exception of the National Police, all military and paramilitary forces are trained in military fashion. The President of Niger is the supreme commander of the entire armed forces. The National Assembly of Niger passed a statute for the Army of Niger in November 2020, planning for the army's size to increase from 25,000 personnel in 2020, to 50,000 in 2025 and finally 100,000 in 2030.
The Sahel region or Sahelian acacia savanna is a biogeographical region in Africa. It is the transition zone between the more humid Sudanian savannas to its south and the drier Sahara to the north. The Sahel has a hot semi-arid climate and stretches across the southernmost latitudes of North Africa between the Atlantic Ocean and the Red Sea. Although geographically located in the tropics, the Sahel does not have a tropical climate.
The Sahelian kingdoms were a series of centralized kingdoms or empires that were centered on the Sahel, the area of grasslands south of the Sahara, from the 8th century to the 19th. The wealth of the states came from controlling the trade routes across the desert. Their power came from having large pack animals like camels and horses that were fast enough to keep a large empire under central control and were also useful in such kind of battle. All of these empires were also quite decentralized with member cities having a great deal of autonomy.
Trans-Saharan trade is trade between sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa that requires travel across the Sahara. Though this trade began in prehistoric times, the peak of trade extended from the 8th century until the early 17th century CE. The Sahara once had a different climate and environment. In Libya and Algeria, from at least 7000 BCE, pastoralism, large settlements and pottery were present. Cattle were introduced to the Central Sahara (Ahaggar) between 4000 to 3500 BCE. Remarkable rock paintings in arid regions portray flora and fauna that are not present in the modern desert.
The Great Green Wall or Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel is a project adopted by the African Union in 2007, initially conceived as a way to combat desertification in the Sahel region and hold back expansion of the Sahara desert, by planting a wall of trees stretching across the entire Sahel from Djibouti, Djibouti to Dakar, Senegal. The original dimensions of the "wall" were to be 15 km wide and 7,775 km long, but the program expanded to encompass nations in both northern and western Africa. The concept evolved into promoting water harvesting techniques, greenery protection and improving indigenous land use techniques, aimed at creating a mosaic of green and productive landscapes across North Africa. Later it adopted the view that desert boundaries change based on rainfall variations.
The United States Africa Command is one of the eleven unified combatant commands of the United States Department of Defense, headquartered at Kelley Barracks, Stuttgart, Germany. It is responsible for U.S. military operations, including fighting regional conflicts and maintaining military relations with 53 African nations. Its area of responsibility covers all of Africa except Egypt, which is within the area of responsibility of the United States Central Command. U.S. AFRICOM headquarters operating budget was $276 million in fiscal year 2012.
Operation Juniper Shield, formerly known as Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara (OEF-TS), is the military operation conducted by the United States and partner nations in the Saharan and Sahel regions of Africa, consisting of counterterrorism efforts and policing of arms and drug trafficking across central Africa. It is part of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). The other OEF mission in Africa is Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa (OEF-HOA).
The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, known by the French acronym GSPC, was an Algerian islamist terrorist faction in the Algerian Civil War founded in 1998 by Hassan Hattab, a former regional commander of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). After Hattab was ousted from the organization in 2003, the group officially pledged support for al-Qaeda, and in January 2007, the group officially changed its name to the "Al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb" (AQIM).
The Pan-Sahel Initiative, according to a November 7, 2002, by the Office of Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State, was "a State-led effort to assist Mali, Niger, Chad, and Mauritania in detecting and responding to suspicious movement of people and goods across and within their borders through training, equipment and cooperation. Its goals support two U.S. national security interests in Africa: waging the War on Terrorism and enhancing regional peace and security." It was in 2005 superseded by the larger-scope Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative, which in turn was incorporated into the United States Africa Command in 2008.
An Islamist insurgency is taking place in the Maghreb region of North Africa, followed on from the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002. The Algerian militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) allied itself with al-Qaeda to eventually become al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Algerian and other Maghreb governments fighting the militants have worked with the United States and the United Kingdom since 2007, when Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara began.
The Niger Rapid Intervention Company is a 130-man special forces unit trained by the United States Military to conduct counter-terrorist operations in 2003 to 2006 in Niger. The NRIC is a unit of the Nigerien Armed Forces, and is one of a number of small forces trained for African nations as part of the Pan Sahel Initiative (2002–2004) and Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative.
A large-scale, drought-induced famine occurred in Africa's Sahel region and many parts of the neighbouring Sénégal River Area from February to August 2010. It is one of many famines to have hit the region in recent times.
Mokhtar Belmokhtar, also known as Khalid Abu al-Abbas, The One-Eyed, Nelson, and The Uncatchable, was an Algerian leader of the group Al-Murabitoun, former military commander of Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, smuggler and weapons dealer. He was twice convicted and sentenced to death in absentia under separate charges in Algerian courts: in 2007 for terrorism and in 2008 for murder. In 2004, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in Algeria for terrorist activities.
Operation Barkhane was a counterinsurgency operation that started on 1 August 2014 and formally ended on 9 November 2022. It was led by the French military against Islamist groups in Africa's Sahel region and consisted of a roughly 3,000-strong French force, which was permanently headquartered in N'Djamena, the capital of Chad. The operation was led in co-operation with five countries, all of which are former French colonies that span the Sahel: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. Mali was a part of the operation until August 2022. The countries are collectively referred to as the "G5 Sahel". The operation was named after a crescent-shaped dune type that is common in the Sahara desert.
Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin is a militant jihadist organisation in the Maghreb and West Africa formed by the merger of Ansar Dine, the Macina Liberation Front, al-Mourabitoun and the Saharan branch of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Its leaders swore allegiance to Ayman al-Zawahiri.
G5 Sahel or G5S is an institutional framework for coordination of regional cooperation in development policies and security matters in west Africa. It was created on 16 February 2014 in Nouakchott, Mauritania, at a summit of five Sahel countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. It adopted a convention of establishment on 19 December 2014, and is permanently seated in Mauritania. The coordination is organised on different levels. The military aspect is coordinated by the respective countries' Chiefs of Staff. The purpose of G5 Sahel was to strengthen the bond between economic development and security, and together battle the threat of jihadist organizations operating in the region.
The US military intervention in Niger was the deployment of special operations forces and unmanned aerial vehicles by the United States in support of the Nigerien government and French military in counter-terrorism operations against militant groups in Niger as part of Operation Juniper Shield. The deployment of U.S. forces in Niger and in the greater West Africa region involved the training of host nation partner forces, enhancement of host nation security assistance efforts, and facilitated counter-terrorism and surveillance and reconnaissance missions in support of host nation partner forces. The U.S. deployed drones from the Air Force and CIA in order to assist American and Nigerien forces in counter-terrorism operations, monitor routes used by militants in Niger into neighboring nations, and to assist operations in Libya.
Terrorism in Burkina Faso refers to non-state actor violence in Burkina Faso carried out with the intent of causing fear and spreading extremist ideology. Terrorist activity primarily involves religious terrorism conducted by foreign-based organizations, although some activity occurs because of communal frustration over the lack of economic development. Recent attacks have concentrated in the Hauts-Bassins, Boucle du Mouhoun, Nord, Sahel, and Est regions, along the border with Mali and Niger. A series of attacks in Ouagadougou in 2016, 2017, and 2018 by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and its affiliates garnered international attention.
An Islamist insurgency has been ongoing in the Sahel region of West Africa since the 2011 Arab Spring. In particular, the intensive conflict in the three countries of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso has been referred to as the Sahel War.
