Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has replaced the head of the army, further marginalizing officers involved in a coup that helped plunge the West African nation into turmoil last year.<\/p>\n
A military junta led by Amadou Sanogo, then a captain and now a general, overthrew President Amandou Toumani Toure in March 2012. The chaos created by the putsch allowed al Qaeda-linked fighters to seize more than half the country until a French-led intervention this year broke their grip.<\/p>\n
The decision to replace army chief of staff General Ibrahim Dahirou Dembele, who was appointed to the post by Sanogo following the coup, was taken during a cabinet meeting on Friday, a government statement said.<\/p>\n
Keita, who won an August presidential run-off meant to draw a line under a year and a half of political turmoil, has sought to sideline the junta’s leadership as he moves to reassert civilian authority and reunite the country.<\/p>\n
The director of the national police force and the head of Mali’s military academies, both considered close to Sanogo, were also replaced on Friday.<\/p>\n
Keita replaced the head of state security, another senior junta member, last month and he has also abolished a military reform commission that Sanogo had headed.<\/p>\n
Sanogo was summoned for questioning this week over suspicions that he had been involved in an army protest in September that left six soldiers dead and a colonel missing.<\/p>\n
General Mahamane Toure, the new army chief of staff, is currently the director of the Alioune Blondin Beye peacekeeping school in Mali’s capital Bamako.<\/p>\n
Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has replaced the head of the army, further marginalizing officers involved in a coup that helped plunge the West African nation into turmoil last year. A military junta led by Amadou Sanogo, then a captain and now a general, overthrew President Amandou Toumani Toure in March 2012. The chaos created […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000049226,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-11381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000049226,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11381.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11381.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11381.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11381.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11381.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton11381.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11381\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000049226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11381"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=11381"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=11381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}