Who is MINUSMA fighting?
“If it was easy, they would not have asked us!”
Colonel Joost de Wolf has been working in the Netherlands Marine Corps for 30 years. On Thursday 17 April he was sent to Mali as Deputy Chief of Staff of Operations of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA). Colonel de Wolf gives a rough overview of the militant groups that MINUSMA will be fighting – MUJAO, AQIM and Ansar Eddine. He assesses the risk of the rebels mixing in with the local population until the UN mission leaves, and the complexity posed by regional causes of conflict.
On 10 April 2014, Colonel Joost de Wolf was interviewed by Bruno Braak at the Dutch Ministry of Defense on the Malian conflict, MINUSMA’s goals, and the Dutch contribution.
For more information on MINUSMA please refer to: www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minusma/.
