Three junta-ruled countries in Africa’s Sahel region will join forces to create a 5,000-strong unit to fight the jihadist violence that has for years plagued the nations, officials said on Tuesday.
Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali will create a “unified force” within weeks, Niger’s defence minister said.
The three nations are former French colonies where the military deposed civilian administrations in putsches between 2020 and 2023.
Following the coups, the three countries distanced themselves from France and last year formed a confederation, the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).
“In this common space, our forces will be able to intervene together”, Niger Defence Minister Salifou Mody said in a televised interview, adding that the 5,000-strong force was “nearly ready”.
“This unified force will not only have its own personnel, but aerial, ground and intelligence means and a coordination system”, he said, adding that it should be operational within weeks.
Taken together, the three countries are sprawled over an area of some 2.8 million square kilometres (1.1 million square miles) — roughly four times the size of France — in Africa’s northwest.
They lie in the region known as the Sahel, which stretches between the dry Sahara desert in the north and the more humid savannas to the south.
Each has been wracked by attacks by jihadists allied with either Al-Qaeda or Islamic State for a decade, violence that governments have not been able to eradicate despite help from French forces.
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