{"id":33494,"date":"2026-05-01T14:22:06","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T12:22:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=33494"},"modified":"2026-05-01T14:22:06","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T12:22:06","slug":"sahel-alliance-launches-airstrikes-after-mali-attacks","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sahel-alliance-launches-airstrikes-after-mali-attacks\/","title":{"rendered":"Sahel alliance launches airstrikes after Mali attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Niger\u2019s military government says a joint force involving Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali has carried out airstrikes in northern Mali following a wave of attacks by militant and separatist groups.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>According to a government statement issued after a cabinet meeting in Niamey, the operation began just hours after co-ordinated attacks were launched over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The announcement offers the clearest indication yet that the three Sahel countries are working together militarily, after months of close political and security co-operation.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Until now, details of any joint operations had remained unclear, despite earlier remarks by Mali\u2019s leader, Assimi Go\u00efta, who had praised support from neighbouring countries and Russia without confirming co-ordinated action.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mali\u2019s Defence Ministry has previously maintained that its national forces were leading operations against what it describes as terrorist groups.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":29469,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-33494","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Joint force involving Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali has carried out airstrikes in northern Mali","published_date":"2026-05-01 14:18:05","news_description":"Joint force involving Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali has carried out airstrikes in northern Mali","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33494\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33495,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33494\/revisions\/33495"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=33494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}