Czech army to serve again in African Sahel, training troops in Mauritania
Czechia will have troops on the ground in Africa again, with members of the country’s army set to return to the Sahel region, as part of a NATO programme to help train the Mauritanian military. A two-year mandate for up to thirty special-forces soldiers was approved by the Czech parliament last week.
Stretching from one side of the continent to the other, the Sahel is a vast and complex biogeographical region of Africa. This semi-arid transition zone lies between the Sahara Desert to the north and the humid savannahs to the south. The region is struggling with the effects of climate change, and is also politically unstable, with a wave of eleven successful and attempted coups d'état in that broad sweep of Africa since 2024. Ensuring the political stability of the Sahel is in the interests not only of its inhabitants, but also of the wider international community, and now a Czech military presence will return to the region.
After a year's break, a maximum of thirty special-forces troops will help train their counterparts in the Mauritanian army, as part of a NATO programme of military cooperation. Czechia recognises the impact that the region can have on Europe; Jan Jireš, Senior Director of the Defence Policy and Strategy Section of the Czech Ministry of Defence, explained the reasoning behind Czechia’s involvement:
“A number of security threats, such as terrorism and illegal migration, are emerging [in the Sahel], and at the same time, great powers that are hostile to us are becoming very strongly involved there, especially Russia and China.”
Mr. Jireš recently told members of the Czech Defence Committee that Russia in particular has the goal of destabilising the region “to push Western countries out of it and intensify the threats … that have an impact on Europe”. Russia’s activities in the Sahel and Africa more generally, especially though the Wagner Group, the state-funded Russian paramilitary organisation, are therefore directly connected to its anti-Western policy elsewhere in the world, most notably Ukraine.
Now that the programme has parliamentary approval, a maximum of thirty members of the Czech Special Forces can set off for Africa. Their destination is the West African country of Mauritania, which has become a bastion of stability in the region under current President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani. The Czech troops will be responsible for training and military advice, as General Miroslav Hofírek, Director of the Czech Special Forces, explained to Radiožurnál:
“Czechia is contributing to the construction of the Mauritanian armed forces by becoming the leading nation in the project to create one of its special-forces units.”
