The U.S. is considering drone strikes and sanctions against the Alliance of Sahel States under the guise of counterterrorism, but the real objective is to regain neo-colonial control over African states and their minerals and markets.
Originally published in Black Alliance for Peace.
It is with grave concern that the Black Alliance for Peace Africa Team (BAP) and U.S. Out of Africa Network (USOAN) view the latest maneuvers by the U.S. against Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, countries that form the anti-imperialist Alliance of Sahel States (AES).
Over the last three months, the Trump administration has declared they are considering a drone strike campaign in Mali to target the terrorist organization JNIM without the consent of that sovereign country. U.S. Congressman James P. McGovern has called on Secretary of State Marco Rubio to impose sanctions on Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, and U.S. Congressman Jimmy Panetta has introduced the bipartisan legislation “Mali Security Partnership and Counterterrorism Act” as ostensibly “counterterrorism” measures in Mali and the AES.
Regardless of what guise U.S. policymakers drape over their interventive policies toward the AES countries, they are merely a pretext to regain neo-colonial control over those countries, seize their minerals and markets for finance capital, and dictate their political direction. The U.S. is an imperialist settler state that has utterly no regard for the lives of poor and working class people of the Global South. As a spawn of Western Europe, it only sees Africa as a host for its parasitic role in the global economy. Any attempt of the host to shrug off the parasite is deemed a threat. They are incapable of recognizing the rights to sovereignty and self-determination.
Any concerns the U.S. professes to have about terrorism in Africa are wholly without merit and must be discredited. The U.S. government is directly culpable for the spread of terrorism across Africa that it now professes to be fighting. Their 2011 destruction of the state of Libya made it possible for their proxy terrorist forces to infiltrate the armory of that country, feeding the terrorism that has extended across the Sahel.
African people in the U.S., African people around the world, and all of global humanity should beware that the latest U.S. posture and maneuvers toward Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger are pretexts to eventually attack the Alliance of Sahel States. The allegiance that the Congressional Black Caucus pledges to the settler imperialist flag prohibits them from contesting the U.S. threat to Mali and the AES, a beacon of hope in Africa, and instead beholdens them to give cover for inhumane atrocities such as the Zionist genocide in Gaza, Palestine.
The BAP Africa Team and USOAN say it is time for a sustained international people’s defense of the Alliance of Sahel States against the diabolic agenda of U.S. imperialism. We would do well to remember the international outcry in defense of Burkina Faso President Captain Ibrahim Traoré in spring 2025 after an attempted demonization by AFRICOM Commander Michael Langley as he testified to his master — the Senate Armed Services Committee. Unfortunately, that defense of Traoré was a fleeting response limited to a highly regarded personality that couldn’t be turned into a sustained movement to embrace the entire AES.
Next month’s 6th International Month of Action Against AFRICOM must serve as a catalyst for a protracted, encompassing movement in defense of the AES. This year’s theme is “Oppression Breeds Resistance: Escalations in the Perpetual War on Africa and The Struggles Against it.”
The Black Alliance for Peace Africa Team and U.S. Out of Africa Network call on all forces against U.S. intervention and for the sovereignty and self-determination of African countries to remain alert to the overt and covert agenda against the AES countries. Stand ready to oppose and expose the manufacturing of consent to an attack on the AES. Demand the expulsion of AFRICOM from the continent! Ensure that no African nation suffers the fate that befell Libya in 2011!
U.S. Imperialism Out of Africa!
RELEVANT RESOURCES:
Iran 2026: Black Agenda Report Special Issue
BAR Editor and Columnist Ajamu Baraka joined BettBeat Media, alongside Dr. Gerald Horne, to discuss the US imperialist campaign against Iran amid the ongoing genocide of Palestinians and how the same…
Western threats against Iran and other nations reveal the persistence of white supremacist ideology.
“I don’t like Trump but Iran is bad,” is the siren song of feckless liberals. This moment calls for condemnation of the U.S. and unreserved support for the Iranian people and for their state.
“The events in Iran are a symptom—of a 20th century disease called imperialism.”
