News / Africa Today

Mali & Takfiri terrorism

Thursday, 10 December 2015 6:50 AM [ Last Update: Thursday, 10 December 2015 6:50 AM ]

A Malian police officer stands guard as municipal workers clean outside the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako on November 22, 2015, two days after a deadly terrorist attack. (Photo by AFP)

Mali has been hit by the expansion of Takfiri militant groups. Terror attacks on November 20 resulted in the deaths of over 20 people and a 10-day nationwide state of emergency.

The death toll would have been higher, security analysts warned, had it not been for the intervention of Malian forces and a multinational contingent already on the ground. International condemnation of this act of terror – later claimed by the Mali-based al-Mourabitoun group, led by Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar – was swift.

Mali has been witnessing violence linked to militant activity in its northern region since 2012. The area remains vulnerable to attacks despite a military operation led by France in 2013, which came after the UN Security Council passed a resolution on the deployment of a peacekeeping force. It is not just Mali’s geography that has made it a focus of terror groups, however. Other factors have been key in drawing in this land-locked country into the world of extremism and terrorism.

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