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Mali Coup'¯Highlights Unresolved Regional Issues

Mariama Diallo

   WASHINGTON - A delegation of African leaders is headed to Mali, where
   the military junta denies it mounted a coup and rejects calls to
   release Mali's president, saying that Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, also
   known as IBK, is safer with them for now.

   A U.N. human rights team visited Keita and other detainees late
   Thursday, the U.N. peacekeeping mission, known as MINUSMA, said.

   "What happens next is really anybody's guess. Do we have new elections?
   There's no parliament, there's no government," says analyst
   W.'¯Gyude'¯Moore, a senior policy fellow at'¯the Center for Global
   Development in Washington.

   "Most frightening, I guess, is that in 2012, there was a similar thing
   -- a mutiny by soldiers -- and the jihadists almost took over the
   country," he added. Moore served as'¯deputy'¯chief of'¯staff to'¯former
   Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.'¯'¯

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