Due South: A Conversation With Pawel Wójcik.

Ladies and gentlemen good morning good evening good afternoon whenever and wherever you're listening to us from this is the due south podcast with me your host wilfred minor africa correspondent for warfronts fronts.co and all our other associated media properties today i am joined by someone who is 9 106 kilometers away from me i checked before we started

Recording the podcast i didn't know it off the top of my head but i am joined by someone who whose name is one very familiar if you're a reader of the articles we put up on fronts.co and to someone whose work i have quoted extensively in my own coverage on you know the situation in mali any other situation where i feel like his tweets will be will provide

Some value will provide some additional insights for our audience ladies and gentlemen i would like to introduce you to a man who on twitter goes by the username saladin aldroni which we will talk about in a minute but ladies and gentlemen pavel it's an absolute honor to have you on the podcast please introduce yourself to our audience well thank you for

Having me my name is paul wucic and thank you for introducing me by my twitter handle and what my bio says about me well i have written for france already a few articles regarding the topics that i have covered for well over a decade now because i started in syria back well when the tb war started so 14 15 years ago and it started from there where where my

Interest in jihadism was introduced and then it kind of spread from syria where al-qaeda where al-qaeda and the islamic states were fighting spread to other places like afghanistan where also taliban well taliban is now in power but back then the islamic state introduced its affiliate its own wing to afghanistan and it was such a bloody affair that it also

Interested that me so i started studying it a lot more and spread even deeper to the philippines for example well now i'm not exactly covering that extensively as i used to but i also watch with interest what is happening in the south of the philippines well it's a very long distance and with the way things are in the horn of africa so somalia well kenya

Where you are based too is also of interest here but especially in the sahel and the absolutely gigantic war that is ongoing there it is spreading throughout the whole west and basically also north africa because it's where the islamic state and al-qaeda's drainage tentacles are so this is where we are today and well i'm not exactly sure how long it's going

To take but well it's going to be a very long war so i think we will be staying here for a very long time thanks for that pavel now before we get into the topic of the day because our topic of the day is mali mali we have so much talk about mali i want to ask you about two things specifically what was happening in the philippines because i don't think you

Even as extensive as our coverage is on fronts and war fronts and home fronts we haven't really gotten a chance to you know cover some of those historical situations so what was happening what was happening there in the philippines and two tell us about your twitter username saladin aldroni because saladin is obviously a historical figure of great importance

To a lot of your people especially in the middle east he is you know one of the greatest sultans one of the greatest war generals who ever lived so yeah just tell us about that what inspired you to take his name for your twitter handle well let's start with saladin aldroni because it's the easiest the two parts saladin and droni well saladin because of salah

Huddin al ayubi so the famous sunni kurt who at some point became sultan and the ruler of well greater middle east one of the greatest warriors for the sunni is islam and islam at large against crusaders against crusaders against crusaders so isma is the famous order of assassins so that's that's a lot we know who saladin is but droni it's because back then

In 2014 2015 especially it's because it's when it started you the whole drone industry that we know today from all over the world so the drones are used to monitor movements on the map drones are used to transporting and drones are used also to bomb things and that's when it started in syria and iraq and it was the first group to build from scratch its own

Drone industry a very advanced drone industry was islamic state in iraq and syria in 2014 2015 and back then you could spot these people here on twitter and on facebook they were everywhere you could talk with them before the ban wave started after the big bombings and attacks like parries or bruises so the whole monitoring of social media started there but

Droney is because islamic state entered the drones and i was covering it at the time that it is happening for example over the fields of iraq where islamic state was slowly losing ground or northern syria and islamic state jihadists started threatening me that they would use as run to bomb my face so just to make them angry i started using that nickname that

Saladin al droni and apparently it was too successful because the time they knew exactly why i changed that well microbeic wasn't anything advanced i just said that a drone industry advanced drone industry is ongoing is advancing is taking place but they were mad about it so that the one part that's where the threat of that from drone bombing by jihadists is

Why i use it and it stays and i think people know me by the nickname nickname because it's very memorable i think and it's going to stay well regarding philippines it's not really something that is ongoing now it because it worsened over time the jihadists they were basically eliminated most of them eliminated however back then in 90s where some filipino

Jihadists came back from afghanistan war against the soviets and left there was in 90s the whole civil war in afghanistan were also filipino malaysian indonesian and some australian jihadists took part and when they came back they created abu sayyaf the famous salafi jihadi group known in other parts of the world for the kidnapping kidnappings and brutality

With beheadings of hostages but in 2014 abu sayem's power was already much weaker than it used to because of well several operations also supported by australia and the united states to constrain them those are islands in the south of the philippines many islands the that also border indonesia and malaysia it's thousands of kilometers of purus maritime

Border that you can't really monitor that much because it's how white it all is it's very difficult to protect that's why pirates always seem to succeed haven't there and but well they were constrained at some point and some factions because it split into factions believed that the new emerging force in islam in syria and iraq in 2013 they saw that the

Islamic state back then isis because we have to remember there was an islamic state in iraq that in 2013 renamed to islamic state in iraq in syria i also wrote it in an article i hope will be published this week if everything goes right for france because it was a very important event islamic state in iraq expanded into syria and became isis and when that

Isis happened jihadists all over the world noticed that a new emerging force that became here so strong can actually be not only joined into an alliance but joined as members because this islamic state even before the proclamation of the proclamation of the caliphate a few months later in 2014 i started sending a invoice all over the world to afghanistan to

Sahel to Somalia, they were everywhere and some Filipinos also joined at the time ISIS and the messages sent back from jihadists, from Filipino jihadists from Iraq and Syria were so strong that some factions, for example Isina al-Hapilon, one of the most famous Islamic state outside of jihadists in the Philippines, decided to pledge an allegiance to the

Islamic state and the Islamic state was very happy to have Isina al-Hapilon join them because he was one of the last true jihadists that stayed true to jihadism.

He was religiously motivated and well long story short he became a commander of the whole Islamic state in East Asia.

The Islamic state sent him money, manpower, resources to station operation and while the first operation was in 2016 in a small town in Mindanao, at Mindanao where they successfully rescued some jihadists from prisons but in 2017 that was where the largest battle of the Islamic state globally outside Syria and Iraq then also Afghanistan, Libya happened

Because a thousand jihadists invaded Marawi in the south of the Philippines and it was absolutely surprising for most of the world that something like this could have happened thousands many thousands of kilometers from the mainland of Iraq and Syria somehow.

Here are jihadists in the catholic nations, nation of Philippines because Philippines are catholic and here's the invasion of the Islamic state and well why it was squashed by the Filipino forces supported by Australian and American air force.

The battle was fought from May 2017 to October 2017 so it was fought over almost five months so you could imagine how much of a surprise it was that some Islamic state outfit in the middle of nowhere could have stayed something like this.

Islilal was killed alongside a few other particularly heavily radicalized jihadists but the Islamic state state in the islands? in the islands out of Marawi. And there was a problem for a few years to come. At some point, Islamic State started sending foreign jihadists like Egyptians, some Europeans. I know of Germans that appeared in the south.

One German conducted a suicide bombing in one of the islands to the south. So there was an unprecedented suicide bombing, because while the Philippines had that Islamist insurgency for many, many years, other also than Abu Sayyaf, because it wasn't exactly one Islamist outfit that's that brutal, even Abu Sayyaf was the state of suicide bombings.

However, with the Islamic States arrival, the suicide bombings, so their symbolic move appeared there. And it was for some time very successful. However, it's what I think that the emergence of COVID and that illness actually eliminated for the most part, because it was very difficult for them to organize any kind of support on those islands.

So there were massive defections. And last true Islamic State bombings occurred in 2024, so two years ago, when they tried to stage a mini comeback that was successfully prevented by the Filipino forces that bombed arriving boats to the main island of the south Mindanao.

Since then, there have been only like two or three Islamic State claims that also arrived not so long ago, because when the attack in Sydney, right? So December last year, Bondi Beach, two Islamists attacked the beach, the targeting Jews, right? So we remember.

And Islamic State started claiming things again, after two years, right after that Bondi Beach bombing. So it wasn't exactly a coincidence. And then it was discovered by the Australian and Filipino police that the duo of father and son who stayed in that Bondi Beach massacre of Jews, for some reason, visited the Philippines.

And exactly the place where the Islamic State is still known to be alive. And they stayed there for two weeks and somehow they also staged a training camp in Australia. They also staged a training camp where it is known to be the places where Islamic State Kurasan province in Afghanistan and Pakistan stay.

So it's an emerging series of coincidences that shouldn't be coincidences. And we'll be discovering it for months and years to come what exactly happens. So the Philippines, I think, always is the place where something weird may re-emerge. Well, it's a very, very long talk, but things in the south are not exactly looking good.

There's a problem with the autonomy of all the Islamic forces that are also corrupt. So, well, corruption is always a kill of basically everything, making people uneasy, unhappy and forcing them to join organizations that promise to deal with corruption. And for most parts of existence of those places, those forces are jihadists, heavy jihadists.

So we may see something happening with the Islamic State in the next couple of years, I think. All right. Thanks for sharing all of that, Pavel. I find it very interesting. And again, this is an area of the world that we as a channel, we as an outlet are yet to dive more into.

And I'm hoping you and I have a chance to speak again to record another podcast, specifically looking at that issue, the Philippines as a historic issue. Now, I have one final question before we dive deep into Mali and audience, please bear with me. But how did it feel being threatened by these jihadist groups that they will use a drone to pop you?

How did it feel? What was that like? Well, at the beginning, I was very new to all of this because, well, it's a very, after years, I have experience now. It's a long story for me over 12, 13 years or 14 even. But the beginnings were very, very tough because of all that exposure to brutality, blood, to thousands of deaths.

And now the jihadists were threatening me. It wasn't exactly easy.

While I was, I used to be a keyboard worker. career because of playing games before I started my career so I also took some part in bantering that bantering that was involved with so much brutality was something completely new to me so I wasn't exactly happy at the time I think I've come to terms with that pretty pretty quickly and well you can imagine now I

Have quite a big following back then I also had something not on the same scale as I am having today but I also had a few thousands of followers back then so people have to come to terms with their population and that you can exactly make everyone happy after getting thousands upon thousands of dead threats from different people throughout years throughout

Many years that you get used to them and well if someone is really really annoying with that threats then I simply well a few months ago I called the police in Paris because someone was not very smart to include their location localization as a shia jihadi that wanted me dead so I put a file to a Paris police and I hope they rented it somewhere so well this

Is how it goes for now wow that is such an insane story I can't imagine the number of death threats you're constantly getting because I have tried to keep my personal account as small as possible you know even when mentoring the kind of work we do with warfronts specifically because I am afraid of those kinds of death threats so yeah I'm honestly in awe that

You even put together a file to send over to Parisian police and tell them hey this guy is doing ABCD you look into it so with that out of the way with some of those interesting stories out of the way stories that I hope we will one day get to sit down and discuss them in deeper length because again this is a topic I find deeply interesting let's go to our

Main topic of the day the situation in Mali now for anyone who does not know in April in late April Janim Jamal Nusrat al-Islamin or Muslimin it's a jihadist group that has links with al-qaeda partnered with a with a militia group known as the FLA the Azawad Liberation and front.

The FLA is a Tuareg group that wants to liberate the Azawad region of the Tuareg area of Mali, where, you know, a large section of Tuareg people live. They believe that, you know, the country as is heavily, heavily favoring, you know, the people in Bamako, the people in the south, the center of, you know, the people in the north.

And, you know, the Tuaregs are the only communities in the north that feel underdeveloped and, you know, undervalued by their state. It's a narrative that is very common in many African countries. So we're not going to dive into that today.

We're just going to talk about Janim and the FLA launching coordinated attacks in April and also in July against, you know, positions held by the Malian government and their allies in the Russia-Africa Corps. So, Pavel, take us through what led to the first incident in April. Then, you know, we'll take it from that.

So, we've got now two main incidents, as you said, in July. So, well, it's what's happening these past two weeks. And in April, those were two most important for Mali events in many, many years, given how symbolic they are and what they represent. Well, we could spend here many hours talking about the origins of all that stuff.

However, just to make it brief, we got two main organizations organizations that are now allied to each other. So, as you said, the FLA, so the Front for the Liberation of Azawad.

Azawad has been the dream of many Tuaregs, so the people that inhabit a lot of places throughout the Sahara from Mauritania to even southern Libya or even Sudan sometimes if someone is really, really that far away. But, well, it's a Berber people that works and they've been there for thousands of years migrating throughout the desert.

And one of the many outfits, because it's not one outfit, they're also, because the Tuaregs are divided among themselves into many clans, clans that also are unified into different confederations, different confederations that are rivals of each other. And the rivers among them are very hierarchical.

Well, I think this is how it is in English, so it's very organized in stages. It used to be much more brutal back in the past because some tribes were set up slaves, right? So, well, for example, India has a caste system. This is something similar.

So there were castes, some tribes, clans were slaves, some were servants, some were warriors, and some at the very top were the royal clans. And what we see in Mali here, in particular, who is doing the fighting on the side of the rebellion, of course, during the fighting.

It is the old royal tribes, Kel-Agar people who want to wrest the north of Mali from the Bambaras in the south. So, well, let's say black people who are in the south of Mali are mainly Bambaras, right? Because there are also other, well, I don't want to give off some kind of racist vibe, but it's very important to distinguish those tribes.

Even among black people, there are differences in Mali, some are straight-up scarecrows, for example, the Fulanis are known in West Africa. I call them the Jews of Africa. If someone has to blame someone, it's surely the Fulanis that have done something wrong, right?

Well, it's a back-and-forth fight, so the north of Mali is fought by the Turks from the royal tribes, and they are allied to Jaini. Well, as you also said, the Al-Qaeda outfit, that back in 2017, again, this 2017 is a very important year of changes, of jihad all over the world.

There used to be many different outfits, organizations, more or less affiliated or not, friendly to Al-Qaeda, that after the first... attempt to conquer Mali in 2012-2013, as we remember the famous Sackleton Muktu, some of these people later were accused of war camps in the Haq here in Europe, by the International Criminal Court.

And because of the failure of the first Al-Qaeda attempt to conquer Mali, they split into many organizations. However, with the way things were, the French intervened and were involved in building Mali. Well, maybe not from scratch, but well, it always involves some kind of state building.

And the jihadists realized that things cannot go with the way things are. If we don't unify, they will swallow us, especially because a new threat emerged. And it's why people sometimes say that I have a hate-love relationship with how I depict the war against the Islamic State, because it's everywhere simply. So it's not exactly easy to avoid them.

And it's again, the Islamic State here that has to be quoted because Islamic State arrived to the Sahel, to Mali, to Niger, and created a new branch that made Al-Qaeda in the Sahel fearful.

So Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb, Maghreb, and other affiliates, for example, led by Liad Aghali, right, so Ansar al-Din, and other outfits came together and decided that here's the breaking point. Either we create something again with our common joint efforts or we get swallowed by France and the Islamic State to the other side.

So they created Jainim and it was very much of a success story. It was almost a decade ago, a decade will have passed next year.

And what was basically an umbrella of different organizations of different, also ethnicities, because some organizations were built around ethnicities, the Fulanis, the Songhai, the Tuareks, right, or other, I don't know, for example, Arabs, there are many, many ethnicities, lighter, darker skin............. that inhabit the Sahel, but they always had some

Kind of ethnic factor, right?

Well, people with the same ethnicity always find it the easiest to work with themselves, right? However, here was so difficult threats to overcome that they had to unify. And they indeed unified, not only along that ethnical and religious backgrounds, but they created a truly unified organization. And this is what we see today.

And we see also in propaganda by Genève that wants to portray itself as an organization of the people. So it doesn't matter what ethnicity you are, what tribe you are, you are now a jihadi. You belong to Genève, you fight for us, and it doesn't matter what language you are, we will destroy the countries in the vicinity of the Sahel and create new reality.

And this is their goal. And Mali is only one of the goals. Well, when you look at the map, I very often speak about it because I am very disappointed and kind of fearful of what is to come, because it's not target at all. The war had spread from Mali, then to Burkina Faso, an area, somewhat area in Niger.

Now it's also in Nigeria, Benin, Ghana, Togo, Senegal, Guinea. And it's very, very likely that it is already spreading also throughout Nigeria, to Chad, to Sudan, to Libya. So it's absolutely a gigantic world that I don't think it has been covered to the maximum it deserves. And only focusing on Genève in Mali is problematic in itself.

However, well, our today's topic is Northern Mali and how things work. So let's focus on Mali. And it has to be said that Genève, back when it was not Genève, but it was a different organization, it was a coalition, where the French intervened during the Operation Barkhane and then Serval.

And at no point the Al-Qaeda jihadists were able to cross Central Mali to the south. There was... In central Mali, they started seizing and occupying cities there, and this is where the French intervened. And then the United Nations came with support, the United States from Niger, where they also had two bases, the Germans, and so on and so forth.

But here's what's the sense. When JNIM was created, it was something completely new that they were able to infiltrate the South. It was not exactly a quick affair. It had been ongoing for many years.

But the first science that something was very, very wrong was in 2021-2022, when the first attacks in the Deep South around Bamako, the capital of Mali, Bamako, in cities like Caius that are bordering also Senegal. It's absolutely horrifying the distances that we are talking about here.

It's thousands of kilometers inside only one country because the maps don't really make it justice how it looks like in reality. So people don't realize that in order for Al-Qaeda to infiltrate the South, what kind of resources, what kind of manpower and what abilities they have had to gain in order to permanently influence the South.

And it has been ongoing for years. And when the first actual offensive happened, people realized that something has gone deeply wrong. Because Al-Qaeda had no point a decade ago was there. But it is here and it is a new reality. And well, for me, the breaking point was 2024.

So two years ago, when Al-Qaeda attacked Bamako and military airport and the military banks. And the whole propaganda industry came out of it. I was also covering it at the time. But it was when people realized that Al-Qaeda can actually send hundreds of jihadists into the capital, into one of the capitals of the Sahel.

And there is no going back from it because only a few months later, first gigantic offensive started dozens of cities in the South. around different borders at the very west of Mali were attacked. That's also when different blockades started, focusing on military supplies, on energy supplies.

So electric city in different cities, including Bamakova, was also halted to some extent, that people only have a few hours a day of electric city, and it's at the very best day of a week. So the extent, I was also covering it when I came back after my long three-year illness in 2023.

Already then, Al-Qaeda, Jainim, produced different propaganda materials, showing them doing something we call Dawa. So, well, long story short, it's some kind of teaching, socialization, influencing in the matters of religion, but also in teaching what Jainim wants when it comes to life in Mali.

And when I saw that these proto-sets that we were issuing were from the borders of Mauritania, from Senegal, the absolutely unprecedented locations, and nobody really bothered with that, already knew that, well, we got some really big trouble coming.

And, well, it was, it was, the best evidence of that was last year, and this year, where if you focus some of your attention on Mali, then you'll see that Al-Qaeda is basically staging attacks everywhere, in the south, in central Mali, where they also fight different tribes, for example, the hunters of Dogos, that are long-time enemies of Al-Qaeda, and if

They overcome those tribes, then the marsh deeper south is basically open in a way, well, it's already somewhat open, were it not for the fact that Russians are really, in quantity, there are a few thousands of Russians all over Mali, I think that Mali would have already been gone a year ago, however, they cannot stage that one final offensive. to conquer

Mali yet.

Yet, because it's a very long process, and every single year now, they are showing us they can do more. And that more started in April this year, where something completely unprecedented happened, not only here in Mali, in West Africa, but Africa at large.

Because it's one of the rare situations where a rebellion is able to reconquer some territory from the hands of heavily supported by Russian forces, militaries. And this is what happened in Kidar. This is still north of Mali. And at the time, Al-Qaeda, together with FLA, the newly introduced alliance with the Tuaregs, which is problematic in itself.

And I don't think it's going to take long for that alliance, at least if the FLA doesn't want the repeat of what happened in 2012.

Back then, they were basically these back steps and the Tuareg project turned into a jihadi project and something similar might happen here, especially with how basically hundreds of times Al-Qaeda is now stronger than it was back then. So, these are two perspectives I urge people to watch out for.

Back then, the French and, well, the UN intervened when Al-Qaeda was 100 times worse than it is today. And Al-Qaeda today is still going much stronger in so many countries. So, this is why this mismatch is so much more horrifying. So, we got April and they reconquered Kidar from the hands of Mali, from the hands of Russian military.

And there were many photos and videos that showed a lot of ammunition, weapons, different kinds of technology that was seized by the Tuaregs and Jainim. And this here in Kidar in April, what they were able to seize in just terms of weapons, can allow them for many more, to do many more offensive in the next couple of years, just based on this one attack.

Yeah, and there are many more because, well, Kidar was only one, even. Even at the time. time, but there were dozens more. In the central Mali in Bamako also were hundreds of jihadists stormed parts of neighborhoods of Bamako also.

A nearby military town, military city, where some most important politicians and army officials in Mali is where they usually live.

Well, the Minister of Defense was killed by a suicide bombing aimed at him, and the dictator of Mali, Colonel Goita also survived, according to what I know, an attempted attack on him, but he was left unscathed because of the protection. He has not only Russians, but according to what I know, he especially is protected by the Turkish security companies.

So it's also another angle, the Turks are also here in some capacity, not exactly the same extent as Russia, because it's a whole different intervention, but Turks are here protecting the interests, their companies, their drones are what allows Mali to prevent some different conquests all over the country.

We're not for the drones, and we're not for the Russians, Mali would have been long gone, and this is my opinion, and people can quote me on that, because I can't believe Mali can survive without those two fractures.

So the events that we have now during the last two weeks are the next stage of what happened in April, but now Al-Qaeda and networks want, well, to conduct some kind of Salamis flight slowly, slowly, but surely cut parts of the North from the junta governing Bamako and also from any future attempts of the Russians to stage military incursions towards the

North, because, of course, well, we remember two years ago, the Tin Zawatin disaster, a convoy, a military convoy of Russian Africa Corps traveled towards the far north near the Algerian border and were completely annihilated.

Almost hundreds of Russians were killed. And last year they tried two or three times to stage similar operations. However, they were forced to withdraw because of JDM FLA. And also because I think that's the most important factor because of the weather, because desert storms completely prevent anyone from conducting any kind of military operation.

And this is also what happened here last week because, well, that battle that was fought over Al-Anafis, a point on the map that the Marians themselves can't really say, what is this? Because it's a very far away town nobody knows about.

However, it has become a very important point because it was also from Al-Anafis that in 2023, so three years ago, Bamako and its Russian allies started the reconquest of the north, right? So Kidal was conquered from the hands of Tuaregs three years ago. And this is where they all thought this is the beginning of our reconquest of the north world.

Now we see that it went totally away, it's gone completely wrong. And well, Al-Anafis is where one wants to hold up in order to conduct a military operation towards the far north or to reconquer Kidal. So taking Kidal for the rebel coalition, so by Jainim, by Tuaregs would be a continuous shift towards some kind of series of strategic wins.

Because it would also cut off the more important base that is to the north of Al-Anafis, so Aguelhog, where there is another military base where Mali and Russians are protecting that base in order to reach in some undecided time, Algerian border once again. However, it's now everything is under question.

The longest, I think, the longest battle so far was fought in Anaphis. There you go. Did you leave the house? Do you leave it for now?

It's finished now, I can safely say that it's finished now, with a very unconclusive result, because, well, you had it yourself on your YouTube recording, while I didn't have much time to watch it all, I knew you included in your recording, something I also uploaded.

So, the loss of Russian helicopter, MI-24 Hint, that is one of the many sources that the Russians used to suppress the tracks, and J-Nim, there are also many losses in man-powered vehicles, on both sides. It was one of the heaviest battles in many years for both of these sides.

And I warned about this when the battle started on Saturday, on April 4th, that provided that J-Nim and FLA wouldn't be able to seize that time, and the Russians and Mali would be able to defend that place. I think that some kind of momentum for the two works and J-Nim may have shattered.

Well, it's not exactly black and white, because J-Nim is a huge organisation, right? As I said earlier, it's staging basically attacks everywhere in Central and South Mali, and that theatre in the north of Mali is something different from theatres South and Centre.

However, some kind of momentum, I think, was lost here, and I don't want to say it's exactly a defeat for the two works or J-Nim did not. However, it was clear that some goals haven't been achieved. The Russians were successful in defending that base, with heavy casualties. Because, well, as I said, it's certain that hundreds of casualties were on each side.

So, it depends on one count, what is win, what is loss. I think the result is inconclusive. However, tactically, tactically, that battle was won by the Russians and the military junta side. However, strategically, I would say… I would say that nothing is threatened at all, because the hardest of Kazultis is something that J.

Niem loses every week, every two weeks, every month, basically. There is a huge exchange of manpower, they keep training, they keep recruiting those people, but they also lose a lot of people each month, so there's a whole replacement industry for J. Niem. People don't realize how gigantic, again, the word gigantic is what I say about J.

Niem, because it's thousands upon thousands of people that die every few months, and they are not exactly going weaker, but are getting even stronger all over the Sahel. So that perspective is kind of spirit-shaking, let's say. So strategically, we continue to watch what will be happening, because that warrants can't really afford not to attack again now.

They have to seize that momentum again, they have to do something. If they want to continue their campaign, the restoration of Azawad campaign, with the aim for future conquests of big cities like Gao or Timbuktu, even some further south, or where Menaka is.

But, well, Menaka is where the Islamic State is, so this is a whole different state of problems, but, well, if they want to keep moving, they have to keep attacking. And so I think that next month or September, we'll have some kind of repeat of anaphis, it doesn't have to be an anaphis, however, it's clear that the coalition will keep moving.

They also can't really stop because of the Islamic State, which is so powerful that it cannot be ousted or prevented from doing much by either the government side or the rebel coalition side. Everyone who hates the Islamic State, somehow the Islamic State is still here.

So you can imagine the whole plethora of problems that are arriving, I also specified it in different articles for France, whether it be Mali or Nigeria, that these two terror jihadi outfits, Jain and Islamic State, are so powerful. can't exactly be defeated in moments because they encompass thousands of kilometers, they are basically mini-states at this

Point, so, well, the trouble is here to stay for the next few years at the very least, but, well, I think it will become a very, very long process because if they are not stopped now, both of them, and especially the Islamic State, because the Islamic State is the one group that will be trying to attack us here in Europe, right?

This is my concern, European concern, because Islamic State Sacher already has moves in Spain, so it's likely they will try to stage some kind of attacks, like different Islamic State athletes back then, for example, the Libya one staged attacks in England or Belgium, so there is a perspective, I very much joy that leaving the Islamic State Sacher alone for

Too long will end up in a disaster even greater than it is a disaster for Jain Yim, because Jain Yim at least pretends to stay in West Africa, well, it pretends, because I don't really believe them, but Islamic State is open what it wants to do, and they want to kill us all, so, well, this is what many perspectives that I have envisioned here in this podcast

For you, and, well, we will be watching it with urgent attention, I guess.

Pavel, thank you so much. That was such a comprehensive answer. I, at no point did I even want to interrupt you because I felt that you are giving us such valuable insight, you know, into what is happening on the ground, especially, you know, stuff like the fact that Goethe has Turkish protection.

I mentioned that in my very first video on Mali, when, you know, the, during the first ever attacks, the April attacks, I mentioned that, you know, some observers like you had suggested that he had Turkish protection, and it's, it's something that's not really being covered a lot, because there was an expectation that, you know, after that attack, after the

Failures of Russia in that attack, you remember that Russia had even negotiated an exit in some places, there was a feeling among, among at least me and some of the observers, observers that I am familiar with, that Mali would be seeking to replace Russia with Turkey, but that hasn't been the case.

I think that this sort of thing is because I feel like this, I'm also, you know, that it's Instead, we've seen Mali stick even closer to Russia. We've seen a situation where Russia is even sending more shipments of weapons to Mali. The Russia-African Corps seems very dedicated to the fight in Mali right now.

So it's something that's particularly surprising to see. So another thing I wanted to ask you, because I know we are short on time.

So the Bureau of African Affairs at the U.S. State Department posted that Assistant Secretary Frank Garcia will visit Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire, and Mali to advance objectives that keep Americans safe, promote economic prosperity in the United States, and advocate for U.S. interests.

So do you see a situation where the U.S. becomes a greater player in Mali anytime soon, or are we just going to see Russia as a dominant power in the Sahel orbit? Well, it's a talk, but again, as you spotted already, I like to talk and to talk in some kind of comprehensive manner, analyzing those things in depth.

So I kind of prolonged those discussions, discussed it a lot. However, there is some kind of mini-return, as I specified it on my Twitter, or if I remember correctly, in some articles on France, that there is some mini-return of the U.S. There is no doubt it exists, because of that transactional policy that the U.S. wants to guide itself on.

However, the word mini-return of the U.S. is, I think, the crux of what is happening, because, well, it's nothing beyond truly symbolic stuff. Okay, in Mali, we already got some intel sharing that apparently succeeded in making Mali kill some high-level Al-Qaeda leader. So that one thing that happened last year, well, also because of the wave of kidnapping.

It's a whole, another series of issues, one of them is mass kidnapping of foreigners in the Sahel, especially in Mali, but last year, in the capital of Niger, an American was kidnapped, and he was kidnapped by the Islamic State. And it was apparently later...

His kidnappers later traveled with him to Mali, so here the U.S. would be interested in rescuing him, so helping the Malian government that is fighting different kidnapping problems all over Mali is also helping the United States.

However, I'm not exactly sure why they would go for Mali, but not Niger in this particular case, but well, we are back with Niger because Niger has the most extensive for now support of the new U.S. administration just a little over a month ago.

So late May, Niger was supplied by the U.S. with some kind of arms, uniforms, some medications worth, if I remember correctly, two millions of dollars. So there is some new help here. However, you can see for yourself that it's symbolic.

Two millions of dollars is nothing compared to what to the times during the Biden administration, for example, when those drone bases in Niger still existed and were integrated. It was integrated into that whole also France security umbrella provided Intel, provided targets to eliminate from above.

It was a huge support at the time because Niger is also battling what is what I consider three Islamic States affiliates from Libya, from Nigeria and the one from Mali and Niger itself. So eliminating those drone bases basically eliminated the 70, 80 percent of monitoring for Niger.

And this is what is happening in Barclays now because the Islamic State is visibly advancing all over Niger and cross Niger to Nigeria. And this is also where I wrote an article for France where I depicted how they arrived in northwest of Nigeria.

And this is also because of the U.S. withdrawal from Niger, because there is no monitoring, there is no preventing Islamic State or Jainim to the lesser extent actions in Niger. So that U.S. support was crucial, was key alongside the French.

So you guys saw that are very well understood from the U.S. put a number ofaits of the blackout, but not in the same time. and you't need to be a bad friend and I'm going to see the Russian land as well. because it's all a complex system that is now a huge void, void that allows both Zainim and Islamic State to advance despite huge losses that they suffer

Every month.

But without extensive air cover, those losses are being quickly replaced.

So if the Americans really thought about helping the Sahel, it would certainly have to be something beyond symbolic stuff like the support we see here, because even the Russians that are visibly, as you said, supporting and are doubling down on that support because they realize that they cannot lose Mali.

They are not to the same extent in Niger or Burkina Faso because the Hunters there are not exactly that eager to rely on them the way Mali is. But, well, Moscow clearly thinks that they have to double down or even triple down on supporting Mali.

Hence, we see different kind of deals with Dwinia, Togo, all the way also different countries in West Africa that would allow the Russia continent to be resupplied by sea. And we see those different shipments that go from Russia to West Africa, then to Mali. But it's not enough. Nothing is not enough. Nothing replaces French air support in the air.

Nothing replaced. Even if they have more offensive drones of Turkish origin, it's not enough. Clearly, even the French was not enough. And what is here now is 100 times worse than what the French were able to do with their military contingent that was spread throughout five countries because it was Mauritania, it was Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger.

It was Chad where the French soldiers stayed. And it was already difficult, but here we got huge distances and that Russian contingent is simply not enough to prevent in stages. So, you can look at this. I already described how...

So Al-Qaeda working stages, slowly salami slicing, cuts off some roads, cuts off some cities, slowly influencers from inside sends envoys to teach young population, recruit, and then it's basically death by name. And, well, the future is completely bleak. The future is completely bleak. I think that is a perfect point to end the episode.

But I have just one final question. It was a perfect point, but I have just one final question, Pavel. Do you see Janim and the FLA try to retake an FAS, you know, within the next six months? Do I see FLA, what, could you repeat? Do you see Janim and the FLA try to retake an FAS within the next six months?

Yes, I think they will, and they have to, they have to keep going. They can't stop, the way I said, because it's a momentum if they now have their operations. I think that the Russians, I think that the Russians will overwhelm them with bombing from above, international bombings.

That's why they have to keep going, and I think the repeat will be soon in the north of Mali itself, because, as I said, in the center and in the south, it's a different story for Janim. They don't really have that much trouble as in the north, because the north is important for everyone.

No one wants to lose access to Algeria, the way Janim and that works have this access now, right? They can't lose it. Russia and Mali wants to regain that access. So, that is a whole hot point that will always be in the minds of everyone, so they have to keep going.

FLA will surely keep going, even with huge casualties, I think they have suffered throughout the last two weeks, yes. All right, Pavel, and with that, we're going to end this podcast. This is the first in a series of podcasts we're going to be doing on the situation in Mali.

We're just trying to give you, our audience, a better understanding of what is happening there. For everyone who takes time to listen to this, we are absolutely grateful. We know for a fact that you guys are the reason we're able to do this kind of work, you're the reason. We're able to put out our research, our analysis.

We're able to bring in guys like Pavel who can share their thoughts, their deep insights. And we can really report on the underreported crises around the world because this is something we realized when the second attack in Mali happened, it received such little attention.

But again, we tried our best to make sure it's getting covered, to go out and connect with experts like Pavel who have all these deep insights, all this deep knowledge. And we set up a podcast that can highlight all of that. Pavel, thank you so much for agreeing to be here with us today. Thank you so much for joining us. I am absolutely grateful.

Thank you for inviting me. Of course, you're welcome. And you're welcome again and again and again. For Wilfred, for Pavel, this has been the Dear South podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, we will end it here and we will catch you in the next one.