Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Mali’s junta-led government retaliates against insurgents, U.S. and Nigerian forces kill a major Islamic State figure, and the World Health Organization sounds the alarm about an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Mali’s junta-led government retaliates against insurgents, U.S. and Nigerian forces kill a major Islamic State figure, and the World Health Organization sounds the alarm about an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Mali’s Military Retaliates

A few weeks after coordinated rebel attacks rocked Mali, threatening the junta government’s grip on power in the country’s north and marking a new phase of its security crisis, the Malian military is retaliating with drone strikes, some of which have killed civilians.

Mali launched air strikes for several days late last week in the northern city of Kidal, which was seized in late April by the Tuareg separatist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM).

Military drone strikes also hit Tene, a town in the central San region, on Sunday. The strikes, which reportedly targeted a motorbike procession, killed at least 10 civilians, including children preparing for a wedding.

The military’s campaign follows unprecedented assaults by the FLA and JNIM, whose joint attacks last month across major northern cities killed more than 30 people, including Defense Minister Sadio Camara. The rebels have continued assaults on civilian communities and infrastructure. JNIM fighters also stormed a prison near Bamako, Mali’s capital, that housed 2,500 prisoners, including members of the group.

So far, there has not been a counter-coup within Mali’s military ranks or a toppling of the junta, as some analysts predicted. But the junta’s position in north and central Mali remains tenuous at best.

An expanded blockade imposed by JNIM on Bamako and the surrounding areas has restricted movement and led to food shortages, further destabilizing the country. At least three of the six main roads leading to Bamako and connecting it to regional ports were under attack by JNIM militants as of May 15, Amnesty International warned.

“On the ground, the threat is very real,” the Journal du Mali reported on Thursday. “Armed terrorist groups are carrying out increased acts of sabotage, ambushes, and intimidation against civilian transport operators in order to........

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