In episode four of The Assessment, Charlie Edwards is joined by Dr Dan Watson, Research Associate for Conflict, Security and Development at the IISS, and Paul Melly, Consulting Fellow in the Africa Programme at Chatham House, to unpack the deepening crisis across Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. With insurgents making gains against the Malian junta, is Russia's Africa Corps quietly shifting from counterinsurgency operations to serving as a palace guard?
As the crisis in the Sahel continues to intensify, allied insurgent groups JNIM and the FLA launched dramatic joint offensives in April and July. Our experts explore the redeployment of troops, Mali's conflict economy and the use of urban asphyxiation tactics by insurgents. The AI models were set a challenge in this episode: can they forecast an event when there are few independent media reports, only limited statistics and a stream of unverifiable government statements to ground their answer?
Tune in to find out.
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