French military said it was providing air support for the operation, which is unfolding over a vast wooded area.
Armed Groups
![A woman in an arid field on the outskirts of Ouagadougou, which used to be fertile farmland [Sam Mednick/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/d7123fba0dca41fd9371009d2cc2b1c8_18.jpeg?resize=570%2C380)
Desperate families in the Sahelian country are plagued by a double burden that has left many displaced and destitute.
![Girls walk together in a makeshift displacement site in Yatenga province. They were forced to flee home when gunmen attacked their village [File: Sam Mednick/Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/21102236efdd4ef1a382e5d28c27bfc9_18.jpeg?resize=570%2C380)
As armed attacks continue in the Sahel, two sisters share their family’s ordeal of kidnapping, death...
![Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan meets with US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington on July 22, 2019 [Jonathan Ernst/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/19d3ad53813a4e8fad21a48bd0985ca8_18.jpeg?resize=570%2C380)
For many in Pakistan, no other group better exemplifies the US’s long history of playing sides to...
![Tracee, aged nine, and her mother, Sharon, on her final visit home before she died in a helicopter accident four years later [Photo courtesy of Tracee Herbaugh]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/49ede9543cde45319ad7e2653d991ec8_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Tracee Herbaugh’s mother, Sharon, abandoned her when she was born, pursuing a career from which she never returned.
![Former Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams challenged his convictions from the 1970s at the UK's highest court [File: Paul Faith/AFP]](/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/60dae5a51c7a4c868f6dee8d6f1cf78d_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
The former Sinn Fein leader says his detention on the orders of a junior minister was invalid.
![President Ashraf Ghani said the release of the fighters was a hard decision he had to make in the interest of the Afghan people [File: AP]](/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/4451f47ff6934ad9826ab8dcb3b32e5f_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
President Ghani says three high-ranking fighters to be freed in exchange for American and Australian kidnapped in 2016.
We debate Brexit’s impact on democracy in Britain, and ask whether it could trigger violence in Northern Ireland.
![Elephants mate, play, and look after their young in Dzanga Bai, a remote rainforest area in the Central African Republic [Al Jazeera]](/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/81d86d89cb924ac7a5f1f3a0d54ccac5_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
A Bayaka elder, an American biologist, and an eco-guard study and protect elephants in CAR until conflict strikes.
![A MINUSCA armoured vehicle secures the hospital in Bambari, in the central-eastern part of the Central African Republic [File: Florent Vergnes/AFP]](/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/704c16d0d1854a96999b90989783787a_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
The government issued an ultimatum to the head of a rebel group known as 3R, urging him to hand over those responsible.
![In this image provided by military personnel, emergency personnel respond to the scene of a deadly car bombing at a police academy on Thursday [Handout/AP Photo]](/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/44db9356402b444891cf3398fc0bafe0_18.jpeg?resize=270%2C180)
Defence minister says ELN explosives expert Jose Rojas detonated his vehicle at a Bogota police academy on Thursday.
Mali’s foreign minister discusses the struggle for regional security, alleged human rights violations and resilience.
How young Basques use football to affirm their identity and politics by fighting with the fans of opposing teams.
Defence lawyers for former Ugandan warlord Dominic Ongwen, on trial for war crimes at The Hague are presenting him as a victim of the LRA’s crimes, not their architect.