Mali is pulling out of a multi-national military force in West Africa's Sahel region combatting a "terrorist insurgency," the country's military junta said in a statement on Sunday.

The G5 Sahel force, which includes troops from Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania, was set up in 2017 to counter jihadists who have swept across the region in recent years, killing thousands of people and forcing millions to flee their homes.

 But the force has been hobbled by a lack of funding and has struggled to reduce the violence.

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The statement by Mali's junta, which ousted former President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and took power in a 2020 coup, blamed a lack of progress in the fight against the Islamists and the failure to hold recent meetings in Mali.

The move would further isolate Mali, which has also been slapped with sanctions from West Africa's regional political bloc, hitting jobs and industry in the impoverished country. The military junta strongly condemned the imposed sanctions. 

Lack of progress is a deciding factor

The G5 was formed in 2014, and its anti-jihadist force was established in 2017 to confront the Islamist insurgency that has swept through the region in recent years.

Mali's junta blamed the failure to hold recent sessions in Mali on a lack of progress in the war against militants.

In February of this year, the G5 chiefs of state were scheduled to meet in Mali's capital, Bamako. It was due to mark "the start of the Malian presidency of the G5". However, the conference  "has still not taken place," the statement said.

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The statement claimed Bamako "firmly rejects the rationale of a G5 member state that advances the internal national political situation to reject Mali's exercise of the G5 Sahel presidency." The decision comes at a time of political friction between Mali and France.