The two military leaders in G5 Sahel Mali's Colonel Assimi Goïta and Burkina Faso's Lieutenant Col Paul-Henri Damiba were not scheduled to attend the Paris meeting...

The gap between Bamako's announced four-year transition and the West African bloc's demand for an 18-month time limit may no longer look quite so unbridgeable but most regional partners remain deeply sceptical of the real intentions of Mali's military ruler Assimi Goïta who came to power in an August 2020 coup (AC Dispatches 12/01/22 Bamako junta gets more isolated as West African leaders cut off financial ties)...

Yet it is the refusal by Colonel Assimi Goïta's regime to accept the deployment of 100 Danish troops in Operation Takuba that may prove more consequential for international strategy in the Sahel...

On the ground Malian soldiers cooperate smoothly with French forces of which Colonel Assimi Goïta would be well aware...

Mali's military leader Colonel Assimi Goïta brought in Wagner towards the end of last year meeting condemnation from several Western powers including France Britain and the United States...

Last year the junta under Colonel Assimi Goïta reconfirmed its control of the political scene by organising a second coup (AC Vol 62 No 11 Don't call it a coup)...

European Union sanctions on those who impede the transition back to democracy following those imposed by the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) deepens confrontation with Bamako – where Colonel Assimi Goïta's regime has confirmed its refusal to hold elections next February...

Mali's military junta led by Colonel Assimi Goïta has shown increasing defiance to France and international and regional organisations both over relations with Russia and a transition to civilian rule since it took power in August last year (AC Vol 61 No 17 The junta haggles on transition)...

With the Kremlin-connected mercenary group Wagner already in advanced talks with Colonel Assimi Goïta's government in Mali Russia could not have picked a more prickly moment to stir things up further with France whose troops have been deployed against jihadists in the country since 2013 (AC Vol 62 No 19 The Wagner act)...

' Junta leader Assimi Goïta also promised when taking power to maintain all prior security agreements...

And in September this year President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Mali's President Colonel Assimi Goïta by phone proposing cooperation across a range of areas – including military expertise on fighting terrorism...

Meanwhile Ecowas threatens international sanctions on Mali's interim head of state Assimi Goïta and his colleagues if they postpone scheduled polls beyond the February date to which they have committed but which they now hint may be impractical (AC Vol 62 No 14 Paris makes up with the junta)...

Yet the US may have if inadvertently created a club of coup plotters through its annual Operation Flintlock joint exercises with West African armies: it was on one such exercise in Burkina Faso in 2019 that Colonel Assimi Goïta leader of the current Malian junta met Doumbouya...