The Malian authorities announced on Friday they had thwarted a “foreign backed” coup plot against the ruling military junta and carried out dozens of arrests among the military apparatus.
Through the voice of the Security Minister Daoud Aly Mohammediene, the junta announced the arrest of a French national accused of “spying” and two generals, Nema Sangara – the first woman to attain that rank – and Abbas Dembélé, a widely respected military officer who was wounded in action on the frontlines during the 2012 Tuareg Uprising, and later on governed the strategic region of Mopti, a hotspot of the jihadi violence.
The move is part of a wider crackdown by the Malian junta against the internal opposition – more than 55 military officers have been arrested over the past week, two former Prime Ministers, including Choguel Maïga, who was installed by the junta in 2021 before being dismissed nine months ago, have been placed into custody on corruption charges.
Mali is ruled by Colonel Assimi Goïta, who led elements of the military in the overthrow of the civilian government of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in 2020, then fully seized power in a second coup in 2021 and appointed himself Interim President. In July 2025, the junta confirmed Goïta as President and granted him a five-year term.
Mali has been embroiled in a civil war since 2012, when an alliance of Tuareg separatists and Islamist combatants launched an offensive against the Malian state, seizing more than 60% of the territory before Bamako’s government called France for help. The French intervention in 2013 allowed Bamako to recover most of the territory and inflict severe losses on the jihadis, but a broader conflict developed along ethnic lines and saw the resurgence of jihadi organizations like ISIS and JNIM. In 2021, the Malian military government expelled French forces and welcomed Russian paramilitaries and has since forged a pro-Russia confederation with the allied military governments in Burkina Faso and Niger.
Since the coups in 2020 and 2021, the security crisis in Mali has sharply escalated: jihadi groups have expanded their territory in northern and central Mali and succeeded in carrying out complex attacks in the west, until now spared from the violence. While casualty accounts remain difficult, independent observers have estimated that the Mali War claimed more than 5,000 lives in 2022 and 2023, compared to a total of 7,000 between 2012 and 2020.
On the political level, the military government has banned political parties, suppressed free press, curtailed civil liberties, kidnapped and imprisoned political opponents, resulting in one of the sharpest global drops in democracy and freedom indices in the 2020s, comparable to Tunisia or Myanmar.
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!ping AFRICA&FRANCE
The Malian authorities announced on Friday they had thwarted a “foreign backed” coup plot against the ruling military junta and carried out dozens of arrests among the military apparatus.
Through the voice of the Security Minister Daoud Aly Mohammediene, the junta announced the arrest of a French national accused of “spying” and two generals, Nema Sangara – the first woman to attain that rank – and Abbas Dembélé, a widely respected military officer who was wounded in action on the frontlines during the 2012 Tuareg Uprising, and later on governed the strategic region of Mopti, a hotspot of the jihadi violence.
The move is part of a wider crackdown by the Malian junta against the internal opposition – more than 55 military officers have been arrested over the past week, two former Prime Ministers, including Choguel Maïga, who was installed by the junta in 2021 before being dismissed nine months ago, have been placed into custody on corruption charges.
Mali is ruled by Colonel Assimi Goïta, who led elements of the military in the overthrow of the civilian government of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in 2020, then fully seized power in a second coup in 2021 and appointed himself Interim President. In July 2025, the junta confirmed Goïta as President and granted him a five-year term.
Mali has been embroiled in a civil war since 2012, when an alliance of Tuareg separatists and Islamist combatants launched an offensive against the Malian state, seizing more than 60% of the territory before Bamako’s government called France for help. The French intervention in 2013 allowed Bamako to recover most of the territory and inflict severe losses on the jihadis, but a broader conflict developed along ethnic lines and saw the resurgence of jihadi organizations like ISIS and JNIM. In 2021, the Malian military government expelled French forces and welcomed Russian paramilitaries and has since forged a pro-Russia confederation with the allied military governments in Burkina Faso and Niger.
Since the coups in 2020 and 2021, the security crisis in Mali has sharply escalated: jihadi groups have expanded their territory in northern and central Mali and succeeded in carrying out complex attacks in the west, until now spared from the violence. While casualty accounts remain difficult, independent observers have estimated that the Mali War claimed more than 5,000 lives in 2022 and 2023, compared to a total of 7,000 between 2012 and 2020.
On the political level, the military government has banned political parties, suppressed free press, curtailed civil liberties, kidnapped and imprisoned political opponents, resulting in one of the sharpest global drops in democracy and freedom indices in the 2020s, comparable to Tunisia or Myanmar.
I have a feeling I doubt this