France has pledged to boost the number of its troops deployed in Operation Barkhane- its counterterrorism mission in Africa’s Sahel region- to 5100 as per a communique released on 2nd February. The reinforcement will see an over 600 increase in soldiers deployed in the Sahel region that is battling various terror organizations linked to either al Qaeda or ISIS.
The additional troops will be deployed in the volatile ‘three borders’ zone between Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. Also, Chad will soon deploy an additional battalion in the tri-border zone within the regional G5 Sahel Joint Force (FCG5S), which also includes troops from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mauritania.
The French-led mission is set to get bigger seeing as countries within the European Union have headed call by France to join in the fight against jihadists in the Sahel countries. Most recently, the Czech Republic announced that it would deploy sixty troops to join new France-led special operations Task Force Takuba in the Sahel. Takuba is set to be deployed to Mali in 2020 as more countries are expected to join France, Czech Republic and Estonia.
France has maintained that the Sahel Coalition would prioritize the fight against ISIS in the Mali-Burkina Faso-Niger tri-border area because it is the most dangerous.
Many armed groups including Islamic State are active in the Sahel region, but the majority of attacks are attributed to JNIM, which formed in March 2017 from a merger of several smaller groups. JNIM’s leadership has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.
