(Reuters) -U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said on Tuesday that he spoke with Mali’s foreign minister, Abdoulaye Diop, to discuss shared security interests in the region.
In a post on X, Landau also said that the United States “commends the armed forces of Mali in their fight against Islamic extremist militants (JNIM).”
In early September, al Qaeda-linked militant group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) announced a blockade on fuel imports to the landlocked West African country. The group has since attacked convoys of fuel tankers attempting to enter the country or reach the capital, Bamako.
Last week, the U.S. State Department ordered non-emergency employees and their family members to leave Mali due to safety risks, as the government there comes under increasing pressure from JNIM.
The insurgents’ two-month-old fuel blockade has all but paralysed Mali’s capital, turning the screws on the military government and raising concern that the jihadists may try to eventually impose their rule on the West African country.
Security analysts say JNIM, which has been operating for months within 50 km (30 miles) of Bamako, currently has neither the intention nor the military capability to seize the city of 4 million people, which it briefly attacked last year.
Though remote for now, the possibility of a JNIM takeover of the capital would be alarming for many Malians. Outside of Bamako, JNIM has announced travel restrictions and issued a decree that all women must wear the hijab on public transport.
(Reporting by Ismail Shakil; Editing by Nia Williams and Leslie Adler)
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