Hundreds of civilians were tortured by Wagner mercenaries in Mali: report

In its more than three years in Mali, the Russian paramilitary group Wagner kidnapped, detained and tortured hundreds of civilians, including at former UN bases and camps shared with the country's army, according to a report published Thursday by a journalist collective.
The victims, who were interviewed by a consortium of reporters led by investigative outlet Forbidden Stories, spoke from a refugee camp in neighbouring Mauritania about waterboarding, beatings with electrical cables and being burned with cigarette butts.
The investigation revealed that the use of illegal detentions and systematic torture, which sometimes led to death, was similar to that which occurred in Ukraine and Russia.
The investigation, which was conducted in conjunction with France 24, Le Monde and IStories, identified six detention sites where the Russian paramilitary group held civilians between 2022 and 2024, but the actual number could be much higher, it said.
Mali's ruling junta, which seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, broke off ties with former colonial power France and pivoted towards Russia for political and military support after coming to power.
The country never officially admitted Wagner's presence, insisting it only worked with Russian instructors.
Nonetheless, last week a Telegram channel affiliated with Wagner announced that the Russian paramilitary group was leaving Mali.
Its personnel will be reintegrated into its successor, Africa Corps, another paramilitary group with links to the Kremlin, according to diplomatic and security sources who spoke with AFP.
For more than three years, Mali had relied on Wagner in its fight against jihadists who have killed thousands across the country.
The paramilitary group's brutal methods on the ground in Mali have been regularly denounced by human rights groups.
A UN report accused Mali's army and foreign fighters of executing at least 500 people during a March 2022 anti-jihadist sweep in Moura -- a claim denied by the junta.
Western governments believe the foreign fighters were Wagner mercenaries.
Last April, bodies were discovered near a Malian military camp, days after the army and Wagner paramilitaries arrested dozens of civilians, most from the Fulani community.
els/bfm/cw

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But this is an unknown, and Israel cannot have it both ways. If you insist Iran's program is advanced and secretive, then there is also the risk something is happening that you are unaware of. Could Iran have assembled all the elements it needs, or even an atomic bomb, at another site, and just be waiting? Only time will tell. The counterargument is also persuasive. Israel has been able to kill Iran's nuclear scientists and military command as they slept in their homes – specific rooms in apartment blocks hit in the first wave of strikes on June 13. This suggests the wide and impressive penetration of vast parts of Tehran's command structure and its most guarded secrets. No operation is perfect; it is possible Washington and Tel Aviv combined knew a lot. It was not just the mountain fortress of Fordow that was struck, either. It is likely, as the dust clears and satellite images provide greater clarity in the battle damage assessment, that we will learn of targets being hit that we did not know about a week ago. For the opponents of Iran's nuclear ambitions – just about everybody bar a handful of Iranian hardliners – that should provide some comfort. But it is likely the Saturday night strikes did not take out everything – not every expert, or every piece of fissile material. The struggle will now be to chase what is left – to pursue the survivors and look for opportunities if panicked elements of the nuclear project make mistakes as they scatter or pick through the rubble. What will remain will likely be the parts of Iran's program which were unknown, if there are any. Tehran may decide that it would be better to reveal or progress this greatest secret only once the threat of Israeli strikes recedes. Does it make sense to rush it out now, at the height of surveillance and bombardment? Diplomacy may – as Trump has suggested with his overnight post on Truth Social that 'NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!' – now re-emerge. But the face of it has changed entirely compared to a week ago. Iranian officials had hinted to the media it might be willing to give up enrichment during talks in the past week. The demands placed upon it may now center on its ballistic missile program, which US hawks have long demanded be dismantled. That is happening, it seems, at a fast rate already, through its intense use of missiles to target Israel, and as a result of Israeli strikes that claim to have taken out the majority of its launchers. The fact that Iran's wish list for negotiations is now significantly altered – as much of what it's hoped to keep has been destroyed or used – reveals the challenge of this moment to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His skies are owned by a hostile air force, his nuclear program heavily damaged, and his military infrastructure and command shattered, constantly having to adapt and replace to survive. This limits his immediate, favorable options for a response. Flat-out strikes against US bases will simply augur a violent US retaliation, and may, after this much telegraphing, prove ineffective. Iran has generally turned to asymmetrical responses, to compensate for its smaller budgets and capabilities. We may see this in the capital cities of Europe and in the Strait of Hormuz in the coming days. It needs to both display some sort of deterrent but also de-escalate, in order to survive. But Iran's capacity to see the longer-view, and its strategic patience, will work in its favor. There are no real electoral cycles to beset the Ayatollah's decision-making. The Iranians have time to regroup, and respond when the heat is lower. The United States, however, has a poor track record of success and application in the region. Last night, it gained the dubious distinction of having bombed a full cartographical sweep of nations from Syria through to Afghanistan in just 20 years. But it failed to dislodge the Assad regime of Syria, and despite years of trying were observers when last year's sweeping changes removed one of Iran's main regional proxies. And its longest war, in Afghanistan, ended in stark humiliation. Iraq, too, began with disputed information about weapons of mass destruction, and ended in failure after years of destruction and loss. Iran is not Iraq and last night was not March 20, 2003, when America's ill-fated invasion of that country began. There is no ground element to Trump's ambition in Iran, and its goal was something widely supported by allies, and possibly within reach. But the US' questionable track record and the hubristic atmosphere around Trump's overwhelming use of force, should amplify alarm in the region over the unknowns to come.