A widening diplomatic rift is emerging in West Africa as Niger and Mali level new accusations against neighbouring states over\u00a0terrorism in the Sahel.<\/p>\n
Speaking at a security forum in Senegal, Mali\u2019s foreign minister said some neighbouring states are\u00a0\u201charbouring\u201d<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0\u201csupporting\u201d<\/em>\u00a0armed groups active in the Sahel.<\/p>\n He did not name specific countries, but also suggested foreign powers outside the region are involved.<\/p>\n Niger\u2019s foreign minister echoed similar claims, saying some nations cooperating on counterterrorism are also, in his words,\u00a0\u201cfuelling and sustaining<\/em>\u201d the violence.<\/p>\n He later clarified he was referring to France, which has not responded.<\/p>\n The accusations come as Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso\u00a0continue to distance themselves\u00a0from the West African regional bloc\u00a0ECOWAS\u00a0after forming their own alliance following military coups.<\/p>\n All three countries have faced\u00a0years of jihadist violence\u00a0across the central Sahel.<\/p>\n Despite the sharp rhetoric, Mali\u2019s foreign minister said limited cooperation with ECOWAS is still possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A widening diplomatic rift is emerging in West Africa as Niger and Mali level new accusations against neighbouring states over\u00a0terrorism in the Sahel. Speaking at a security forum in Senegal, Mali\u2019s foreign minister said some neighbouring states are\u00a0\u201charbouring\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0\u201csupporting\u201d\u00a0armed groups active in the Sahel. He did not name specific countries, but also suggested foreign powers outside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18062,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"AP","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,1129,27],"tags":[187,383,283],"class_list":["post-20601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-mali","tag-niger","tag-senegal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20602,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20601\/revisions\/20602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}