France withdraws its forces from Mali

WHEN THEYUNECOWAS arrived in 2013 it was in a rush: 250 men from a base in Senegal; 950 from Chad; helicopters and men from Burkina Faso. With fast-moving columns of jihadists dashing south through Mali and poised to capture Bamako, the capital, within days, there was no time for a multinational force from the or , the regional bloc. François Hollande, then French president, ordered his troops into Mali, urging them to “get it done”.And they did. Within hours they were attacking the jihadists; within weeks France was recapturing cities such as Timbuktu and Gao. Yet what had been planned as a brief intervention turned into a grinding nine-year struggle against jihadists affiliated to al-Qaeda and Islamic State. Now they are leaving, their mission incomplete. On February 17th, after meeting in Paris with European and African partners, France announced that “due to multiple obstructions” by the current Malian regime it would withdraw its roughly 2,400 troops from Mali. A European special-forces mission is withdrawing, too.