Burkina Faso and Niger have followed Mali in announcing their withdrawal from the international force: The G5.
This International Force was established to fight Islamists in the Sahel sector.
All three countries have been operated by military rulers since the coup who formed their own mutual defence pact.
The Alliance of Sahel States, –AES, was signed in September however, Chad and Mauritania still remain a member of the G5 force, originally made up of about 5,000 soldiers.
The Burkina Faso and Niger administrations have been critical of the G5 force for failing to make the Sahel region secure.
The two nations had released statements suggesting that the anti-jihadist force undermined the their desire for greater “independence and dignity” and was instead serving foreign interests.
It is believed that Burkina Faso and Niger were talking about France.
This is coming as the relations with the former colonial power have increasingly dwindled.
What pundits are now asking is what impact this situation will have on the Islamist militant groups that have been rapidly increasing in strength across the Sahel region.
As of now, there is no evidence to indicate that having soldiers leading the country will make the population safer from the threat of al-Qaeda and IS-linked fighters.
