CEP contributor Pieter Van Ostaeyen interviewed: “Civilians in the Sahel region are caught between warring factions. From jihadists from IS and al-Qaeda, to Russian mercenaries and government troops from the military juntas. There seems to be no end in sight to the hopeless cocktail of violence in the Sahel. The name Sekou has been changed for security reasons. His real name is known to us. The data in this video about jihadist activities in the region can be found here: https://acleddata.com/”

“... “Despite the seriousness of the situation and the significant deterioration of the security situation that the attack demonstrated, it hardly drew any media attention,” the senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, Hans-Jakob Schindler, tells the Sun.  Similarly, a second Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin attack occurred on September 17 in neighboring Bamako, the Mali capital. More than 70 were slain and at least 200 more injured, with little coverage in the Western press.  According to Hans-Jakob Schindler’s assessment, there are two main reasons why the terrorist situation in West Africa is not getting much attention: One is that the conflict in the Middle East has taken center stage, and the second is that over the past two years, Western forces have withdrawn from the region almost entirely.”

“…Previously, the French anti-jihadist force Barkhane, the UN mission MINUSMA and European forces contained the threat in the North, Hans-Jakob Schindler, director of the think tank Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), explained to AFP. But Bamako asked them to leave the country and move closer to Moscow. Since then, Schindler notes, the Malian army has been ineffective, its Russian mercenary allies "have committed atrocities against the local population," and the JNIM is capitalizing on these dysfunctions by claiming in its propaganda that it is protecting the population, “creating uncertainty everywhere.”