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Mali’s years-long internal conflict has entered a new phase of shifting alliances and diplomatic outreach, with the Tuareg separatist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) confirming it has held direct, tactical communications with Russia’s Africa Corps and publicly calling for open dialogue with Turkey to facilitate a negotiated political settlement to the country’s deepening crisis. The revelations came in an exclusive interview with Middle East Eye from FLA spokesperson Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, who detailed the complex web of battlefield coordination and competing political goals shaping the current conflict.

Today, the FLA is fighting alongside Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-aligned armed coalition, against Mali’s military-led government. The two factions have coordinated a series of successful offensives in recent months, capturing multiple urban centers and military outposts, blockading the capital Bamako, and even killing senior government military leadership including Defense Minister Sadio Camara. Despite this operational alignment, Ramadane emphasized that the two groups hold fundamentally divergent end goals: the FLA seeks to establish an autonomous independent state of Azawad in Mali’s resource-rich northeast, while JNIM’s core objective is to overthrow the Bamako government entirely.

The current military landscape in Mali is a dramatic reversal of just a decade ago, when French and Western coalition troops were deployed to prop up the Malian state against JNIM and its predecessor extremist groups. Today, the Malian junta relies on military support from Moscow, which first deployed Wagner Group mercenaries to the country in 2022. Following the short-lived Wagner mutiny against the Kremlin in 2023, the group’s Malian operations were reorganized into the official Russia Africa Corps.

A major FLA-JNIM offensive in April exposed critical weaknesses in Russia’s military deployment in northern Mali, with Africa Corps personnel withdrawing from the strategic northern city of Kidal shortly before FLA fighters seized full control of the area. By July, as fighting intensified around Anefis, a town located roughly 100 kilometers southeast of Kidal, unconfirmed reports began to circulate of informal arrangements between the FLA and Africa Corps.

Ramadane confirmed for the first time that direct contacts between the separatist group and Russia’s Africa Corps have indeed taken place, but stressed these communications are strictly tactical in nature and do not amount to formal political negotiations or a strategic shift toward rapprochement. “I can confirm that there were direct contacts in certain contexts, notably around questions related to movements, withdrawals and the situation in certain areas,” Ramadane told Middle East Eye. “In a conflict, there are sometimes channels of communication with the adversary to avoid incidents, manage certain situations or facilitate occasional arrangements. This does not mean that the political objectives of the parties have become compatible.”

The FLA spokesperson also stressed that the northeastern Azawad region must not be allowed to devolve into a proxy battleground for competing foreign powers, even as the group pursues new diplomatic overtures to Turkey. Over the past decade, Ankara has steadily expanded its diplomatic, economic, and military footprint in Mali, emerging as a key external partner for the Bamako junta. Since 2023, Turkey has supplied armed drones and other military hardware to the Malian government, and bilateral trade between the two countries has tripled since 2014. According to reporting from Le Monde, arms and ammunition made up 20 percent of all Turkish exports to Mali in 2024, making it Ankara’s top export category to the country ahead of electronics, industrial machinery, and cereals.

Ramadane acknowledged Turkey’s deepening ties to the Malian junta, noting that Turkish-supplied drones have allegedly been used in strikes that have caused civilian casualties in Azawad. “We note that Turkey has considerably developed its relations with the criminal junta in Bamako, particularly in the sale of drones,” he said. However, he argued that Ankara’s growing influence positions it uniquely to facilitate dialogue, and the FLA is not calling for Turkey to cut its ties with the Bamako government. “We do not ask Turkey to break its relations with the military junta. We ask it to look at the Malian reality in all its complexity and not to consider the question of Azawad solely through the prism of the authorities in Bamako,” Ramadane explained.

The FLA is seeking to open direct channels of dialogue with the Turkish government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, rather than limiting engagement to only military channels, Ramadane added. He emphasized that the outreach is not an attempt to recruit a new foreign military patron. “We do not ask Turkey to take a military side with the FLA. We ask it first to listen and understand,” he said. “Turkey’s influence in Africa and the Muslim world, combined with its close relationship with Bamako, gave it a particular responsibility. We do not ask Turkey to choose between Mali and Azawad. We ask it to contribute to ensuring that peace is not imposed on Azawad but negotiated with it. Our essential message is this: we are not seeking foreign patrons for our cause, we are seeking partners capable of contributing to a just, lasting political solution consistent with the aspirations of the populations concerned.”

A senior Turkish official familiar with African affairs responded to the FLA’s outreach, confirming that Ankara is open to engaging with a broad range of actors in Mali. “Ankara was open to dialogue with a range of actors and that channels could be found if the FLA wanted to engage with the Turkish government,” the official told Middle East Eye. “However, it doesn’t mean that we will take their side and be part of the internal conflict of a foreign state. But we would listen to them.”

Alongside its diplomatic overtures to Russia and Turkey, the FLA once again clarified the nature of its current cooperation with JNIM, stressing that operational coordination on the battlefield does not constitute a formal political alliance. Ramadane acknowledged that the two groups have grown closer operationally out of a shared opposition to the Malian junta and Russian military presence, but their core political projects remain distinct. “It is first necessary to distinguish two things that are often deliberately confused: operational convergence on the ground and political alliance,” he said.

Following coordinated April offensives across northern and central Mali, the two groups launched a second wave of coordinated attacks in July, including heavy clashes around Anefis and targeted strikes on military positions in Gao and Aguelhok. Ramadane argued that the ad-hoc cooperation is a pragmatic response to current battlefield conditions, not a merging of political goals. Any lasting peace agreement, he emphasized, must explicitly address the longstanding political demands for Azawad’s self-determination. “The FLA remains an Azawadian political and military organisation whose project responds to the aspirations of the people of Azawad,” he said. “That being said, lasting peace in Mali and Azawad will necessarily have to take into account the realities on the ground.”

Ramadane also argued that JNIM, which now draws the vast majority of its membership from Malian citizens, cannot be sidelined in any future peace process. “It is impossible to make peace in Mali or speak of stability without including JNIM,” he said, adding that the group has increasingly begun to articulate a political platform focused on local grievances, rather than only a transnational extremist agenda.

In a converted classroom-turned-emergency shelter at a public school in Sidon, a 72-hour-old newborn rests on a frayed, thin mattress pulled directly onto the concrete floor. The infant’s first days of life unfold surrounded by the quiet chaos of displacement, just a few feet from where an elderly man stirs a pot of lunch, separated from the new mother and child only by a rickety shelf stacked with donated canned goods and bundled clothing. Three separate families now crowd into this single classroom, all their worldly possessions tucked into dusty corners, as they wait for a chance to return to their homes in southern Lebanon’s Nabatieh district.

This newborn’s mother, 29-year-old Hala Loubany, had only just recovered enough from an emergency cesarean section to sit up and watch over her son, one hand still pressed instinctively to the throbbing surgical wound on her abdomen. Her labor began unexpectedly right here in the school shelter, and she was rushed to a local hospital at the last minute for the life-saving procedure. When Hala fled Nabatieh six months into her pregnancy alongside her husband, their two young sons, and her father, this Sidon school was already the second makeshift refuge the family had been forced to occupy.

Hala’s 54-year-old father, Ali Mahmoud Loubany, shared the family’s story with Middle East Eye, describing the terror of the initial Israeli bombardment that pushed thousands from their border communities. “Israel just started bombing everywhere and everyone at random, people who I know very well are not affiliated with Hezbollah. I kept thinking, ‘Where do we go? Or do we stay and try and fight back?’ I was scared as the Israelis were also targeting the cars as people were fleeing. It was terrible,” he recalled.

Ali first learned his childhood home in Zawtar, a village perched on a hillside overlooking the Litani River, had been completely destroyed when he checked satellite imagery on Google Maps. “On the map, you don’t know which pile of rubble is your house. All the land, all the trees… the whole village has been flattened. We have gone back 100 years,” he said. When the bombing began, he admitted, he had wished “for the ground to just open up and swallow me.” Just a day before speaking with reporters, Ali had attempted to travel back to Zawtar to survey what remained of his property, only to be fired on by Israeli occupying forces with a grenade, forcing him to flee back to the shelter.

This is not the first time Ali has lost everything to conflict with Israel. After the 2006 war, he rebuilt his home brick by brick and replanted his small farm, where he grew tobacco and fresh vegetables. He even joined local demining teams to clear the area of dangerous cluster munitions that contaminated the region following that earlier conflict. Now, after decades of slow, painstaking reconstruction, he faces the same catastrophic ruin. For the first time in his life, Ali is considering leaving Lebanon for good, though he has no idea where he might build a new life.

Poor living conditions add to the family’s constant stress. The shelter’s only women’s bathroom sits directly across the hall from their classroom, with just three laminate shower stalls that families must sign up to use by a shared schedule. Residents wash clothing in shallow, cramped sinks. For Hala, still recovering from major surgery, inadequate sanitation creates a constant, crippling worry that her surgical scar will develop a dangerous infection.

Rents for temporary housing near former border communities are far out of reach for most displaced families, Ali explained. “I know many people are somehow affording to rent houses near their homes… but it is really expensive. If I had the money, I would spend it on medicine that the family needs but we cannot afford. We are stuck here but at least we are alive and safe. There are mattresses to sleep on and NGOs bring us food,” he said. Still, Ali sees no long-term future for his family in Lebanon, adding: “There is no one by our side, the Lebanese government does not care about us. Lebanon is a country of war.”

Mina Jardali, a field worker with the humanitarian organization Action for Humanity, which provides funding for ambulance services, medical care, and community bakeries across the region, says Ali’s despair is shared by thousands of other internally displaced people (IDPs) across Lebanon. She has watched families arrive at shelters with nothing but a single bag of clothing, only to leave weeks later hoping to get closer to their homes, only to be displaced again. “Ali is not alone in looking elsewhere, like Europe, for an escape,” she noted.

In the same classroom, Hala’s husband Hassan Bisher, a 33-year-old former taxi driver from Nabatieh’s Kfar Tebnit, plays with his two young sons, six-year-old Jaffar and one-year-old Haydar. The boys take turns racing a plastic toy bicycle around the room, weaving between mattresses and folding chairs. Growing up in a crowded shelter is not the future Hassan imagined for his children, especially not with the arrival of their new baby brother. His own family home in Kfar Tebnit was destroyed in an Israeli air strike, just as it was first destroyed in the 2006 war. It took the family a full decade to rebuild it the first time.

“Their childhood memories are all gone,” Hassan said. “What is even harder is that I depended on my job to look after my children, but now I am unable to provide for their needs. Every parent strives to provide for their children to see them as happy as possible, to help them excel in life. And I cannot do that now.” Unlike his father-in-law, however, Hassan holds onto hope. His only wish is to return to Kfar Tebnit once the bombardments stop and start rebuilding again, even if he has to live in a tent pitched on the rubble of his old home in the meantime. “I just want to pitch a tent on my land and smell the fresh air of the town once again… I prefer that than being anywhere else,” he said.

Further down the dark school corridor, another displaced family tells a story marked by even greater loss. The Darwish family, originally from Nabatieh, saw their four-story family home flattened by an Israeli bomb during the 66-day 2024 war. Their relatives are now scattered across dozens of different shelters, and one of their sons, Samih, was killed in an Israeli strike on his motorbike in the Beqaa Valley two months after a 2024 ceasefire took hold. His 71-year-old mother Sobheya cries as she pulls out a photo of her son, saying simply: “Samih was driving on the motorway and was martyred, just like that. He left three children behind and we have no idea what is going to happen to them as he was the only provider.”

Sobheya and her 72-year-old husband Mahmoud spent 18 years building their home, creating an apartment for each of their three sons while the couple lived on the ground floor. Their 42-year-old son Hussein says what he misses most is gathering the whole family for dinner every night. Losing his brother and watching his parents’ life work turned to rubble has left him numb with grief and anger. “I have no feelings, I am numb. Losing his brother has caused him unbearable pain he cannot put into words, as has seeing his destroyed home, the result of 18 years of his and his family’s hard work,” Hussein said, his voice shaking as tears filled his eyes. “We did not know the house was targeted until we went back. Other houses around it were still standing… So why us? We don’t do politics, we don’t know anyone from Hezbollah.” The family still hopes to return to Nabatieh one day, but Hussein worries constantly about his elderly parents’ health, as they sleep on the floor with nothing but thin sheets and a flattened mattress between them and the cold concrete.

As of September 1, the International Organisation for Migration estimates roughly 856,000 internally displaced people have returned to their home communities across Lebanon, but the widespread humanitarian crisis remains far from over. Since the Loubany and Darwish families were interviewed for this report, the Sidon school shelter was shut down in late September, and all residents were transferred to other aid facilities, a forced new displacement that has only deepened the hardship for more than 329,000 IDPs still living in uncertainty across the country. For Hala’s newborn son, displacement has become the default of life before he is even old enough to remember having a home of his own. For his grandfather Ali, it is a fate that he fears will define the rest of his life.

A prominent French actress and longtime gender-based violence activist Adele Haenel has become the center of a fierce free speech controversy after her on-air remarks condemning Israeli actions in Gaza resulted in the full removal of her television appearance from public access.

Haenel’s September 9 guest slot on France 5, a public French television channel, was originally arranged to promote her debut book, which details her decades-long fight for accountability over sexual abuse she endured as a child minor at the hands of acclaimed French director Christophe Ruggia. Just months prior, in April 2024, a French court handed down a conviction against Ruggia for sexual assault, a landmark ruling that became a national flashpoint for conversations about systemic silence around sexual violence in the French film industry.

The talk show she joined is structured around open, unfiltered debate, with a core premise that invited guests are granted full latitude to share their perspectives. During her segment, Haenel read a prepared statement to the live studio audience, drawing a thematic connection between the culture of silence that protects perpetrators of sexual and gender-based violence and the global lack of accountability for what she described as widespread sexual violence against Palestinian people in Gaza perpetrated by Israeli forces.

In her unscripted closing remarks delivered live on air, Haenel stated plainly: “The State of Israel is committing genocide in Palestine, and France is complicit. Don’t accept the unacceptable; sanction Israel and liberate Palestine.” The statement was met with enthusiastic applause from the in-studio audience, but triggered immediate pushback from pro-Israel advocacy groups and far-right political actors, who filed formal complaints against the network.

Within 24 hours, on September 10, parent broadcaster France Televisions confirmed it had pulled the entire episode from its online replay platform, effectively erasing Haenel’s comments from public view.

In subsequent comments to French media, published in full by Middle East Eye, Haenel detailed how she intentionally altered her prepared remarks to name specific responsible parties. She explained that she had submitted a milder draft of her statement to producers ahead of the taping, because she was certain the full unedited text would be blocked from airing. That morning, she rehearsed the approved draft for production and technical teams, with no objections raised, even after sharing the modified script with the show’s lead producer that same day.

The key difference between the submitted draft and her live remarks, Haenel noted, was the explicit naming of the State of Israel as the perpetrator of genocide. “As long as there is no subject in the sentence, a genocide appears as an inevitable reality, a crime without a perpetrator,” she explained. “On the other hand, saying ‘the State of Israel is committing genocide’ points to this State as responsible for this ongoing crime against humanity.”

She further argued that naming the perpetrator forces Western governments, including France, to confront their own policy choices: namely, the decision not only to avoid acting to end the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, but to actively enable ongoing violence through arms sales to Israel. Haenel added that mainstream French media largely pushes a one-sided pro-Israel narrative that frames Palestinians as responsible for their own suffering, allowing Western governments to maintain a false veneer of innocence. This dynamic, she said, is what prompted the harsh media backlash and censorship of her comments.

The incident has reignited long-simmering debates in France over free speech, media bias and acceptable forms of protest against Israeli military action in Gaza, with free speech advocates decrying the removal of the episode as an act of overt political censorship.