NOUAKCHOTT (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th March, 2021) Niger's President-elect Mohamed Bazoum on Monday called the French-led operation to defeat jihadists in Africa's Sahel region the coalition's relative failure, arguing that a drawdown would not change the balance of power.
"We would have liked to see better results from our cooperation with the French army than what we have. This relative failure is our shared failure, a failure of the entire coalition," he told RFI radio and France 24.
Bazoum suggested that a drawdown of French forces would not have a significant effect on events on the ground, provided France maintained the air support.
This comes more than a week after jihadists killed at least 137 villagers in an attack in western Niger.
France sent thousands of troops to the former francophone colonies of Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Chad and Burkina Faso as part of Operation Barkhane in 2013 to help governments roll back Islamist insurgency. It maintains 5,100 troops in the Sahel.
