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| - Al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadists in the Sahel have indicated willingness to negotiate with Mali's government, a statement verified Monday said, providing that foreign troops leave the war-torn West African country. The statement follows a decision by Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita last month to consider talks with jihadist groups, breaking a long-held government refusal to do so. Mali has been struggling to quell an Islamist insurgency that erupted in the north in 2012 and has since claimed thousands of military and civilian lives. Despite the presence of French and UN troops in the country, the conflict has also since spread to central Mali as well as neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. In a statement verified on Monday by jihadist-surveillance NGO SITE Intelligence Group, the al-Qaeda-aligned GSIM group said it was ready to discuss ways to end the conflict with the government in Bamako. But the group added that a precondition for talks was "an end to the arrogant, racist, crusader French occupation." "There can be no talking about negotiations under the shade of occupation, before the departure of all French forces and their followers from Mali as a whole," it said. GSIM, or the Group to Support Islam and Muslims, comprises several different jihadist groups and has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks on Malian soldiers since its formation in 2017. France has some 5,100 soldiers deployed across the Sahel. The UN mission in Mali, called MINUSMA, has some 13,000 members. bur-lal/eml/gd
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