Assimi Goïta

Two days later Mali's President Assimi Goïta signed a decree stating that elections would be held by March 2024 meaning that the transition would last 24 months starting from 26 March 2022 – the date of the Ecowas summit at which formal negotiations over the length of the transition began...

The summons is another round in the bitter fight between the junta under Colonel Assimi Goïta and Paris and touches some raw nerves about France's relationship with Bamako's civilian elite...

Additional curbs on its activity imposed by Colonel Assimi Goïta's regime in Bamako make it even harder for Minusma to operate effectively...

It has also unlike Col Assimi Goïta's junta in Mali continued to work with the French army which along with other European militaries has deployed anti-terrorist forces in Burkina Faso...

Colonel Assimi Goïta's military regime is responding to mounting allegations of human rights violations by the national army and Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group by lashing out at reporters of the abuses...

After carrying out operations Maliko and Kélètigui over the past three months the military regime led by Colonel Assimi Goïta – who took power in an August 2020 coup – claimed successes against the jihadists particularly in the central regions...

Given Maïga's worldview he may share this analysis but he and transition president Col Assimi Goïta have so far refrained from direct comment...

It is a difficult sell domestically where public opinion – as right across the Sahel – has been enthused by Mali's junta leader Col Assimi Goïta and the populist-nationalist rhetoric of his premier Choguel Maïga in defying France...

The two military leaders in G5 Sahel Mali's Colonel Assimi Goïta and Burkina Faso's Lieutenant Col Paul-Henri Damiba were not scheduled to attend the Paris meeting...

The gap between Bamako's announced four-year transition and the West African bloc's demand for an 18-month time limit may no longer look quite so unbridgeable but most regional partners remain deeply sceptical of the real intentions of Mali's military ruler Assimi Goïta who came to power in an August 2020 coup (AC Dispatches 12/01/22 Bamako junta gets more isolated as West African leaders cut off financial ties)...

Yet it is the refusal by Colonel Assimi Goïta's regime to accept the deployment of 100 Danish troops in Operation Takuba that may prove more consequential for international strategy in the Sahel...

On the ground Malian soldiers cooperate smoothly with French forces of which Colonel Assimi Goïta would be well aware...