DAKAR, Senegal: A military alliance between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger withdrew their respective ambassadors from Algeria in response to the downing of a Malian drone this week, the group said late Sunday.
\nThe Alliance of Sahel States, which goes by its French acronym AES, blamed Algeria on social media for the drone\u2019s downing and condemned it as an \u201cirresponsible act\u201d that violated international law.
\nThe act was \u201ccontrary to historical relations and fraternal relations between the peoples of the AES Confederation and the Algerian people,\u201d the group said.
\nThe Malian Foreign Ministry in a statement on social media Sunday denied claims by the Algerian government that the drone had violated Algeria\u2019s airspace by over 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) and instead claimed that \u201cthis action proves, if proof were needed, that the Algerian regime sponsors international terrorism.\u201d
\nMali in the statement also summoned the Algerian ambassador, withdrew from a 15-year-old regional military group that includes fellow AES member Niger, and filed a complaint with \u201cinternational bodies\u201d about the incident.<\/p>\n
The development comes as tensions are on the rise between Algeria and its southern neighbors, including Mali.
\nRida Lyammouri, a Sahel expert at the Morocco-based Policy Center for the New South, said the latest war of words was unlikely to escalate beyond that. He doubted the Malian government\u2019s ability to conduct a thorough investigation because the crash \u201ctook place in an area it doesn\u2019t control, and what remains of the drone has been recovered by groups opposed to the government.\u201d
\nAlgeria once served as a key mediator during more than a decade of conflict between Mali\u2019s government and Tuareg rebels. But the two countries have grown apart since a military junta staged coups in 2020 and 2021, putting military personnel in charge of Mali\u2019s key institutions.
\nAlgeria has denounced the direction that Mali\u2019s new government has taken and its expanded efforts to quash rebellion in historically volatile parts of northern Mali. Afraid of the conflict spilling over the border, Algerian officials have denounced Mali\u2019s use of Russian mercenaries and armed drones near Tin Zaouatine, a border town in the north were the drone was found.
\nAlgeria has one of Africa\u2019s largest militaries and has long considered itself a regional power but military leaders in neighboring Mali and Niger have distanced themselves as they\u2019ve championed autonomy and sought new alliances, including with Russia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DAKAR, Senegal: A military alliance between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger withdrew their respective ambassadors from Algeria in response to the downing of a Malian drone this week, the group said late Sunday. The Alliance of Sahel States, which goes by its French acronym AES, blamed Algeria on social media for the drone\u2019s downing and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":79272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79262"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":79274,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79262\/revisions\/79274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}