The Story

Germany announced this week that it is going to pull its troops out of the UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, currently its largest deployment beyond the borders of the EU.

The 1,200 Bundeswehr soldiers won’t leave immediately. A timeline for withdrawal by May 2024 ensures that they will remain in the Saharan country beyond the elections that are supposed to take place in February of that year.

For Mali, the decision increases the uncertainty around the future of the UN mission to secure the country against Islamist insurgents. In recent months France, the UK and other European countries decided to end their involvement in light of efforts by the country’s military junta to push them out.

In the summer the Malian government, which came to power in a 2020 putsch, repeatedly blocked Germany from changing out its troops while it also stopped issuing permits for the Bundeswehr to fly unmanned reconnaissance drones.

The junta’s decision to invite Russia’s notorious Wagner mercenaries in…