United Nations experts said in a new report that the armed group ISIL (ISIS) has almost doubled its territory in Mali in less than a year. The delay of a peace deal have offered ISIL a chance “to re-enact the 2012 scenario”, the report said. This is when rebels in the north formed “an Islamic state.” The rebels were forced from power in the north, but they moved to Mali in 2015 and remain active. In 2020, Mali’s president was overthrown in a coup and an army colonel was sworn in as President. He developed ties to Russia’s military.
In 2015, there was a peace agreement in Mali. This has empowered al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, known as JNIM, to vie for leadership in northern Mali. Mali’s military rulers are watching the confrontation between ISIL and JNIM from a distance. In June, Mali’s military rulers ordered the UN peacekeeping force and its international troops to leave after a decade of working on stemming the insurgency. The armed groups that signed the 2015 agreement expressed concern that the peace deal could fall apart without UN mediation.