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Mali Govt Says Al-Qaeda Extremists In Region Receive Training, Drones From Ukraine

Via The Cradle

The Malian government announced on Thursday that militant groups with links to Al-Qaeda carrying out terror attacks in the country were trained and armed by Ukrainian specialists.

Fousseynou Ouattara, Vice President of the Defense Commission of Mali's Transitional Council, said authorities identified militants who received training in Ukraine to carry out operations using kamikaze drones produced by Kiev. "These young people are known, we have now added them to our lists, and we have their names," Ouattara said.

Illustrative file image

The militants fighting the Malian government belong to a Tuareg-led separatist group, the Azawad Liberation Front (ALF), and Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimeen (JNIM), an extremist group linked to Al-Qaeda.

He added that the militant groups are receiving fighters from Algeria, Mauritania, and Libya, as well as training from members of the French Foreign Legion and Ukrainian instructors.

France is allegedly supporting the ALF and JNIM following the Malian government's removal of French troops in 2022. In their place, private military contractors from Russia's Wagner Group were deployed.

After a May 2021 coup in Mali, the country's military junta officially demanded that France withdraw its troops "without delay." French troops had been present in Mali for nine years, allegedly to fight the Al-Qaeda-linked insurgency.

Mali was a French colony known as French Sudan before it gained independence as the Republic of Mali in 1960. However, France has sought to reassert its influence in Mali and in neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger, which are also former French colonies.

In September 2023, the military leaders of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso established the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), which established a partnership with Russia.

Fighting between the Malian army and the ALF and JNIM has escalated in recent weeks. On July 7, the Malian army released a statement saying that "more than 200 terrorists were neutralized during coordinated air and ground operations" conducted in the village of Anefis in the northern Kidal region. The army statement noted that the operation was conducted in response to attacks by armed groups on military positions.

On July 4, Mali's Ministry of Defense and Veterans Affairs announced that militant groups attacked army positions in Aguelok, Anefis, Gao, Kenioroba, Konna, Sevare, and Somadougou.

Clashes with the militants reportedly continue near Anefis, where a major Malian military base is located. On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his AES counterparts held a meeting in which they condemned destabilization campaigns supported by Ukraine and France.

Russia and the AES agreed to expand military cooperation, with Moscow pledging additional support to strengthen the operational capabilities of the armed forces of AES nations.

The foreign ministers of Russia, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso described the recent militant attacks on AES countries as "barbaric and ignoble" acts threatening regional stability.

"The two sides firmly condemned such destructive actions aimed at undermining the sovereignty of the AES and regional stability," they said.

via Middle East Eye

The ministers also acknowledged the efforts of troops from AES member states in repelling "terrorist attacks," as well as the contribution of Russia's African Corps to counterterrorism operations in the Sahel.

The Russia-AES meeting took place as French President Emmanuelle Macron visited Syria to meet President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former Al-Qaeda and ISIS commander. During the 14-year war to topple former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, France joined the US and its allies in supporting Sharaa's Nusra Front, which finally took power in Damascus in 2024.

Tyler Durden Fri, 07/10/2026 - 15:45

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US Nuclear Regulator Seeks Simpler Environmental Reviews To Boost Nuclear Expansion

Authored by Evgenia Filimianova via The Epoch Times,

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on July 8 proposed narrowing environmental reviews for new and renewed nuclear reactor licenses, a move the agency said would reduce costs, as the Trump administration pushes to expand nuclear energy.

In this aerial view, the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant stands in the middle of the Susquehanna River near Middletown, Pa., on Oct. 10, 2024. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The proposal would change how the NRC implements the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), limiting reviews to environmental effects that fall within the agency's legal authority.

The NRC described the proposal as the "most comprehensive update to its environmental review regulations in decades," adding that it would remove outdated requirements and make the licensing process more efficient.

NRC Chairman Ho Nieh said the proposal, which is open for public comment until Aug. 21, would better align the agency's environmental reviews with what Congress intended under NEPA.

He told reporters: "For many, many, many years, NRC did much more than required by law in the National Environmental Policy Act. So this really brings us back to what NEPA demands, nothing more, nothing less."

Nieh also said, "By concentrating on impacts the NRC can address, we'll strengthen environmental protection while making licensing reviews more timely and predictable."

He said that the NRC proposes to limit areas where it does not have authority over effects on the environment, such as the construction of nuclear plants.

"Dust, noise, air impacts, non-radiological water, or non-radiological effects, all of those things are examples of where they're outside of our regulatory authority, and so we won't be doing those in the future," he said.

NRC's chief environmental review and permitting officer, Kimyata Savoy, said the proposal would save reactor developers and the agency about $135 million in licensing costs for new reactors and license renewals.

Other measures under the proposal include new categorical exclusions, an update of environmental review procedures, and greater flexibility for applicants in providing environmental information.

The proposal follows a series of actions by President Donald Trump aimed at expanding nuclear power in the United States. Trump signed four executive orders on May 23, 2025, directing the NRC to license 10 new reactors by 2030 and supporting a plan to quadruple U.S. nuclear power capacity by 2050.

One of them, executive order 14300, directed the NRC to reform its licensing process. The White House said the commission had slowed nuclear development by imposing unnecessary regulatory requirements.

U.S. Energy Information Administration data show that last year, nuclear energy accounted for about 18 percent of U.S. utility-scale electricity generation.

Series of Reforms

The July 8 proposal comes one week after the NRC announced broader changes to reactor licensing and radiation safety regulations.

The agency on July 1 proposed replacing a radiation risk model that has guided U.S. nuclear regulation for about 50 years.

The NRC said the changes would modernize regulations and make it easier to build new reactors without reducing safety standards.

The proposal drew criticism from some nuclear safety experts.

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in comments submitted to the NRC in July 2025 that there was "absolutely no technical or practical basis" for changing the agency's use of the "as low as reasonably achievable" standard.

The regulatory changes also coincide with progress in the administration's advanced reactor program.

The Department of Energy announced on July 1 that the third advanced nuclear reactor authorized under the administration's pilot program achieved criticality on June 30 at Idaho National Laboratory.

Criticality is the point at which a reactor reaches a stable chain reaction capable of producing electricity continuously.

The reactor, known as Unity and developed by Deployable Energy, met the July 4 deadline established by Trump's 2025 executive order, which required that at least three advanced reactor concepts achieve criticality outside national laboratories.

The cooling towers for units 4 (L) and 3 (R) at Plant Vogtle, operated by Georgia Power Co., in east Georgia's Burke County near Waynesboro, Ga., on May 29, 2024. Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP Tyler Durden Fri, 07/10/2026 - 14:55

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