Mali Militants seize village

Militant separatists of the FLA, or Azawad Liberation Front, recently seized the settlement of Koniba. The FLA is just one of several headaches for the regime in Bamako, which is also battling Islamist groups linked to ISIS and Al Qaeda. The Malian government receives aid from Russia though it is often playing whack-a-mole in the country’s periphery, swinging at threats that emerge, cause havoc, and then recede into the wilderness. If there is one advantage that the government can leverage, it is that their enemies do not share common interests. The FLA has no love for the Islamists, and the Islamists occasionally trade shots with each other.

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