Leaving Timbuktu
19 Dec 2021
Nine years after Timbuktu welcomed them as liberators, French troops are withdrawing from their final outpost in Mali's far north. There's no unruliness here, but also no cries of mission accomplished: the jihadist radicals who scattered when French-led forces intervened have long since morphed into a low-intensity insurgency with raids as far away as the far north of Benin. With the summer's chaos in Afghanistan still fresh in memories, when is the right time to end military intervention?
17 Dec 2021
Nine years after Timbuktu welcomed them as liberators, French troops are withdrawing from their final outpost in Mali's far north. There's no unruliness here, but also no cries of mission accomplished: the jihadist radicals who scattered when French-led forces intervened have long since morphed into a low-intensity insurgency with raids as far away as the far north of Benin. With the summer's chaos in Afghanistan still fresh in memories, when is the right time to end military intervention?