Mali troops and Russian mercenaries withdraw from northern city after rebel attacks

It's just replacing european imperialism with european imperialism

Yeah i'm with you in that boat. The better outcome for Mali was keeping the French around to do the job. But they kick them out and now, this is the result. Make stupid choices receive stupid prizes.

Well, thing isn't working like this, more like Russian mercenaries suspect your village cooperate with islamists then slaughter your village, and when islamists come they suspect your village cooperate with military and Russian mercenaries then slaughter your village again

They were happy to wave Russian flags as France withdrew.

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Probably worse than the taliban as they will probably seek expansion 

Yeah , we (France) can’t let them though: that’s mostly where all of our terror attacks were trained before joining ISIS. So up to another coup and another 5,000 soldiers on the ground (which was our largest solo operation this century).

Hmmm how about Afrissia?

Not really but it was kinda predictable.  One of the few things that kept the country somewhat running was the foreign presence cooperating both with the Malian government and with the local independentists while hunting down the local djihadists. But the limits were often blurry and the malian were frustrated by the status quo and the military junta that toppled the government exploited the frustration to make France (and all country involved in the MINUSMA in the end because they all left, Denmark left by saying a diplomatic f*** off and cut everything) as the scapegoat. The Malian central government was unable to retake the mostly Tuareg populated city of Kidal without the French and the Chadian and was unable to offer a proper administration and military force to run it fairly by themselves for ~10 years. By removing the French buffer between the central government and the Tuaregs and by adding the Russian method being violence as a common solution, it was merely a matter of time before everything fall apart. And to add insults to the injury, the Ukrainians openly supported the Tuareg just for the fun of hunting down Russian assets. Won't be surprised to hear that Gao would be next.

Not exactly a sports game here. You don’t have to “root for” anyone here. Russians are horrible walking war crime and crimes against humanity generators, Mali dictatorship ain’t much better and Islamists are, well…Islamists. Only ones decent in region were French who kept Islamists and various Tuareg factions in check. Meanwhile Malians decided that French are evil colonialists and were quite happy about coup , expulsion of French troops (after they saved Malian asses) and Russian arrival so they can deal with their own mess now

The forces fighting the Malian government is very diverse. In addition to radical Islamist forces, the group in the north, than have taken the city of Kidal, are the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), an ethnic Taureg seperatist group that have been fighting the central government for years. While not explicitly Islamist themselves, this is one of many coordinated operations with Islamists.

Shame they can't both lose.

It’s so weird when Listnookors say this sort of thing. In what world do you root for f****** Al-Qaeda taking over a country?

This is always the answer, root for the civilians and hope for peace