“…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.”