Five-nation African force seeks to deploy

UNITED NATIONS — Mali’s foreign minister urged the U.N. Security Council on Friday to authorize the immediate deployment of a five-nation force to fight the growing “terrorist” threat in Africa’s vast Sahel region — a move the United States opposes.

Abdoulaye Diop told the council that Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, acting president of the so-called Group of Five, is deeply concerned at the difficulties the French-drafted resolution is facing in the council.

Leaders of the group — Mali, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Niger and Chad — created the joint force to fight terrorism, transnational organized crime and human trafficking, and its deployment is only awaiting Security Council authorization, he said.

A U.S. official said earlier this month that while President Donald Trump’s administration supports the force in principle, it doesn’t believe a Security Council resolution is legally necessary for its deployment.

A 2012 uprising was blamed for prompting mutinous soldiers to overthrow Mali’s president, creating a power vacuum that led to an Islamic insurgency and a Frenchled war that ousted the jihadis from power in 2013. Jihadis remain active in the region, however, frequently attacking Malian and French soldiers, as well as U.N. peacekeepers.