Mali’s military has staged a coup, taking President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cissé into custody near the capital, Bamako. The situation is reminiscent of the 2013 French military intervention that was prompted by a coup, the flight of the then-president, and the success of an al Qaeda affiliate that nearly overran the country. All those factors are at play once again, seven years later.
The president of France, the United Nations, and the United States have called for the restoration of the constitutionally-elected government. But that is unlikely to occur in the short term. Keita announced on August 19 that he had resigned to stop further bloodshed. Cissé, in a gesture of reconciliation, said that he understood the frustration of the protesters who have held massive demonstrations in the dusty streets of Mali’s capital.
