Mali’s military abandons outposts amid attacks

BAMAKO, Mali — Dozens of soldiers posted to Mali’s remote northern town of Labezanga served as the last line of defense against extremists roaming the surrounding desert.

Then one evening earlier this month the military pulled up stakes and left, part of a reorganization following a wave of attacks on other farflung outposts. The 60 soldiers have been assigned to more central bases, the closest some 60 miles away.

“There is no military ... no police left in our village,” one concerned resident told local radio. “People are calm but we have been left at the mercy of this insecurity.”

Mali’s military reorganization comes amid devastating extremist attacks that have left more than 100 soldiers dead in just six weeks’ time.

Soldiers also have left the community of Andraboukane in the Menaka region, where no mobile phone service even exists. Their departure created panic among residents who fear the return of extremists who controlled major towns, including theirs, in 2012 and implemented a harsh version of Islamic law. A French-led military intervention forced them back into the desert, where they have regrouped.

President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has faced a decline in military morale after the recent attacks, a sentiment that helped spark a coup against his predecessor in 2012 amid an uprising that saw separatists and Islamic fighters take over large swaths of the north.

Keita this month pledged “improved conditions for our men,” saying the military would take a more offensive role in fighting extremism. In a statement Sunday, the military confirmed that some of its isolated units would be regrouped at other bases.

The political discontent has spread to soldiers’ widows and other family members, who have staged several sitins in the capital, Bamako, and in Kati, home to Mali’s largest military base. They demand better equipment and training for those on the front lines.

“Reducing the risk of these large-scale attacks on bases is a way of potentially mitigating that political risk and mitigating pressure on the armed forces and also on (the president). But I don’t think this anger is going away,” said Andrew Lebovich, an analyst of the Sahel region and visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The outrage also has been directed at former colonizer France, which has kept 5,000 soldiers in West Africa’s Sahel region as part of a longterm effort to stabilize it.