After years of military operations, billions of dollars and soldiers spend fighting insurgents in Mali, the French government is facing grave allegation of sponsoring terrorism in the African nation where the colonial master’s popularity is sagging.

According to German news agency, Deutsch Welle, the two countries are currently trading blames over failed military operations in the country which has ultimately been taken over by a military junta.

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Consequently, the French military operations base in the Sahel is moving to Niger to contain Islamist bandits that have bedeviled Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Nigeria.

On Tuesday France withdrew the last of its troops from Mali after earlier announcement in July that Niger would become the new base for troops deployed to the Sahel.

The Oracle Today gathered that France withdrew the last set of its troops from Mali earlier in the week after the former African colony petitioned the United Nations Security Council accusing France of helping Islamist militants to destabilize the Sahel country.

The Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop stated in a petition to the head of the United Nations Security Council that France violated its airspace and provided arms to terrorist groups to destabilize the West African country. But France denies the accusations.

He counted in the petition that the country’s airspace has been breached more than 50 times this year; adding that French troops used drones, military helicopters, and fighter jets in Malian airspace without authorization.

“These flagrant violations of Malian airspace were used by France to collect information for terrorist groups operating in the Sahel and to drop arms and ammunition to them,” Diop wrote without offering details.

Mali contends that France colluded with Islamist extremists, providing them with information that was used to destabilize the country. Malian authorities raised suspicions of external support to militants who killed 42 soldiers in a recent attack.  

There are doubts however that France could have staked so much in fighting terrorism in the Sahel region and end up supporting roving bandits that are destabilizing the entire region.

The French military deployed in Mali since 2013 to help its former colony fight jihadis who had destabilized the country. France has spent billions of dollars on its military mission to Mali, in which 53 of its soldiers lost their lives.

The French embassy in Bamako declared on Twitter that “France intervened in Mali between 2013 and 2022 at the request of the Malian authorities.  France liberated many Malian towns which had fallen into the hands of terrorists and neutralized several hundred terrorists in Mali and rendered harmless two historical figures of terrorism in the region.”

But the Nigeriens are not jubilant with the deployment of French troops, DW reported. And some 15 civil society organizations have expressed disappointment at the French deployment, and a coalition of civil society organizations has organized protests to demand the immediate departure of the French troops.

Official statement from the French government declared that “France remains engaged in the (wider) Sahel (region), in the Gulf of Guinea and the Lake Chad region with all partners committed to stability and to the fight against terrorism.”

 About 1,000 soldiers are to be based in Niger’s capital, Niamey, along with fighter jets, drones and helicopters. And up to 400 more are to be dispatched for special operations alongside Nigerien troops in the border regions with Mali and Burkina Faso.

About 700 to 1,000 French troops are also based in Chad, with an undisclosed number of special forces operating elsewhere in the region.