The current diplomatic crisis between Algeria and the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) presents recently elected African Union Commission leaders with an opportunity to mediate and regain the organisation’s standing in a region crucial to Africa’s security.
The dispute originates from a clash between Algeria and Mali over the destruction of a Malian drone by Algeria’s army on 1 April on the border at Tinzaouaten. Algeria says the drone crossed its border; Mali says the aircraft was in its own territory.
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Diplomatic relations between the two, which date back to 1960, have often been turbulent due to the issue of northern Mali’s successive separatist movements. However, this is the first time that Mali has denounced Algeria’s military aggression and referred the matter to the United Nations Security Council.
Algeria and the AES countries
The crisis has also taken on a regional dimension, given the political, diplomatic and military alliance formed by the AES Confederation (comprising Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali). Niger and Burkina Faso have shown their solidarity with Mali by recalling their ambassadors to Algiers, as has Mali. Mali and Niger have also withdrawn from the Comité d’Etat-Major Opérationnel Conjoint (CEMOC), which had brought them together with Algeria and Mauritania’s military forces.
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CEMOC has not been very active since its creation in 2010, but it provided some security coordination and a useful cooperation framework, with Algeria especially providing training support.
The vast stretches of desert comprising these countries’ border regions are prime transit routes for arms, drugs and migrants. These areas are largely unsupervised, especially by Mali and Niger’s security forces, making them sanctuaries for armed bandits, terrorists or separatist groups.
Given that Algeria’s military capabilities are unrivalled in the region, the risk of armed conflict seems minimal at this stage. Nevertheless, the inter-state tensions could destabilise the buffer zone between the Maghreb and West Africa – an area already weakened by Libya’s civil war and neighbouring countries’ insecurity.
This new crisis should be a wake-up call for the AU. The withdrawal of AES countries from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in January means that the regional bloc lacks the legal standing and legitimacy to mediate the crisis. This poses an unprecedented challenge to the AU’s peace and security architecture and subsidiarity principle, which relies on regional bodies like ECOWAS to initiate conflict prevention actions.
The AU must use the appropriate channels to rapidly re-establish dialogue and pave the way for a return to constructive relations between Algeria and the AES countries. Its Peace and Security Council should focus on the northern Mali issue, which is at the root of the dispute between Algiers and Bamako.
Mali has accused Algeria in recent months of serving as a rear base for the separatist Front de Liberation de l’Azawad (FLA), after hostilities between the group and Bamako resumed when the government recaptured Kidal in November 2023.
Shortly thereafter, Malian authorities ended the 2015 Algiers Accord, which had failed to bring peace with the separatists. Fighting resumed, with northern Mali’s Tinzaouaten region becoming the flashpoint of the conflict. In July 2024, Mali’s army, backed by Russia’s Africa Corps, suffered heavy losses when they were ambushed by the rebels.
The current environment presents an opportunity for the AU to regain influence in the Sahel. The organisation has been sidelined over the years for numerous reasons. One is its competition with ECOWAS for leadership in managing the 2012-13 Malian crisis, which ultimately led to the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali’s (MINUSMA) African contingents being placed under UN control.
The AU was also marginalised by France’s activism in the Sahel and backing of the G5 Sahel as an alternative to the AU’s Nouakchott Process launched in 2013. The initiative aimed to strengthen security and counter-terrorism coordination between Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal. Successful mediation between Algeria and the AES countries could even help to revitalise this process down the line.
The AU is now well placed to fill the leadership vacuum left by the withdrawal of Western powers and MINUSMA, the disintegration of the G5 Sahel, including its Joint Force, and the sidelining of ECOWAS.
The AU should seek to achieve three objectives. First, bring Algeria and the AES Confederation together through mediation. Second, promote a new wholly African political solution to the northern Mali crisis. And third, relaunch continental efforts to combat terrorism by revitalising the Nouakchott Process at a later date.
There are several assets the AU can use to achieve these aims. It could leverage Angola and South Africa’s excellent historical relations with both Mali and Algeria. Likewise, the AU Commission’s new Chairman, Mahmoud Youssouf, has many contacts in African diplomatic circles. Countries like Mauritania – a CEMOC member that has cordial relations with the AES countries – and Chad, with its ties to both parties could also help.
Outside the continent, the AU could informally approach Russia to facilitate. Moscow has long-standing diplomatic relations with Mali and Algeria, and is the AES countries’ main military partner. It is also a strategic partner of Algeria – the third largest importer of Russian weapons globally, and the largest in Africa.
However, to succeed, the AU’s new leadership must assess the political and security threats facing West Africa, and reposition itself at the centre of responses.
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While the conflicts in Somalia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are also emergencies, the Sahel cannot wait. The AU should rethink its wait-and-see attitude of recent years, a posture illustrated by the vacancy of the position of High Representative and Head of the AU Mission for Mali and the Sahel (MISAHEL) since August 2023.
Beyond the current crisis, the new AU Commission chair should appoint a High Representative and bolster MISAHEL’s mandate to provide it with the means and flexibility to operate effectively and constructively in a volatile geopolitical environment.
Hassane Koné, Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné and Djiby Sow, Institute for Security Studies (ISS) Regional Office for West Africa and the Sahel
(This article was first published by ISS Today, a Premium Times syndication partner. We have their permission to republish).
