PASO / CSSP Mfuma — Mali / AES: counter-terrorism submission, civilian protection and evidence preservation

Executive summary — inquiry threshold reached, not final verdict

The minimum threshold for investigation, evidence preservation, formal reply request and counter-terrorism review is reached. Final attribution, individual responsibilities and criminal qualifications belong to competent authorities after adversarial review of public and sealed evidence.

The dossier does not request a conclusion without investigation. It asks competent mechanisms to process a convergence of serious signals: activity of an Al-Qaida-associated entity, official allegations of support or facilitation, possible technical or informational relays, civilian impacts, risk of digital evidence destruction and need for independent audit.

France / Paris — counter-terrorism consistency review

The question is not: “France automatically had to arrest.” The defensible question is whether French actors allowed, protected, platformed or media-legitimized an FLA/ALF spokesperson after operations reported as coordinated with JNIM, an Al-Qaida-associated entity.

At minimum, this triggers a duty to assess: preserve evidence, check sanctions and visas, consider questioning or referral, then publicly explain why no measure was taken if that was the case.

The mirror test is central: if an ordinary person, Muslim organization, African activist or anti-French actor had publicly legitimized from French soil an Al-Qaida-linked armed sequence, would authorities have examined apology, provocation, terrorist association, sanctions, visa or public order? If yes, the apparent absence of review must be explained.

Evidence table to complete for the France section

Guilt-inversion and proxy-legitimization pattern

This layer documents a warfare mechanism: an armed or proxy actor commits, joins, enables or exploits violence, then a media or diplomatic environment reframes the story so the target state becomes the main culprit while the armed actor is repackaged as rebel, opposition, democratic force, threatened minority or useful relay.

PASO eight-question test

1. Did the armed actor or relay coordinate with, benefit from, or publicly align with a listed terrorist entity or terror-method actor?
2. Did media or diplomatic actors use sanitizing labels while omitting the terrorist-link or armed-alliance context?
3. Did foreign actors admit, imply, celebrate or normalize assistance, information-sharing, training, access, platforming or strategic benefit?
4. Did the narrative shift primary blame onto the target state while reducing the armed relay’s responsibility?
5. Were civilians, victims, blockades, executions, kidnappings, coercion, intimidation or territorial conquest minimized or reframed?
6. Was the armed actor granted safe presence, travel, interviews, diplomatic tolerance or PR access that ordinary terrorism-linked actors would not receive?
7. Did authorities preserve evidence, perform sanctions/visa/public-order checks, request clarification, open an inquiry or explain non-action?
8. Were denials, corrections and rights of reply preserved in the record?

Narrative-laundering and guilt-inversion matrix

Correction: threat prioritization, Ukrainian relays and Mali’s UN contradiction request

The wording must be corrected: in this sequence, the public argument does not say France was using Ukrainian relays to avoid any direct support to JNIM. The more useful and serious line is that RTL reports, citing a French security source, indirect French action in Mali through Ukrainian relays cooperating with Tuareg rebels, in a context where France appears to treat the Malian government and its Russian supporters as the more immediate strategic threat than JNIM.

That distinction changes the analysis. The dossier must test a threat-prioritization hierarchy: if a state treats the Malian/AES government and the Russian axis as the priority threat, indirect cooperation with Tuareg relays becomes problematic once those relays operate in a sequence where FLA/GSIM-JNIM alignment is publicly reported. The issue is not hidden intent; it is foreseeable effect, counter-terrorism compliance, evidence preservation and explanation of non-action.

Strongest legal claim — due-diligence breach, safe-haven effect and conditional facilitation

The strongest public formulation is not automatic guilt. It is the following: counter-terrorism due-diligence breach risk, safe-haven effect risk, narrative-laundering risk and conditional facilitation risk where knowledge, contribution and effect are established.

Once a listed Al-Qaida-associated actor appears in the chain, platforming, travel tolerance, media visibility, informal contacts, Ukrainian relays, public statements, visa status, sanctions screening and official ignorance claims cannot be treated as ordinary political noise. They must be reviewed for possible support, legitimization, concealment, safe-haven effect, propaganda utility or material benefit.

Demand formula: preserve records within 48 hours, acknowledge within 5 working days, provide a reasoned response within 10 working days. Failure to do so will be recorded as a procedural fact and transmitted to competent counter-terrorism, sanctions, human-rights and international criminal justice mechanisms.

Immediate requests to competent mechanisms

Obstruction, cyber-enabled crimes and Article 70

Any deletion, falsification, blackout, coordinated removal, account cleaning or destruction of logs must be treated as an evidentiary incident to preserve when it can be linked to crimes under the Rome Statute.

UN / CTED / 1267 package

Goal: convert the dossier into a structured counter-terrorism review request: listed entity, flows, benefit, knowledge, continuity, civilian impact, lack of audit and evidence preservation.

Deliverables package — efficient filing architecture

The filing package is split so each authority receives only the material it can lawfully process. Public material stays public-safe. Sensitive originals remain sealed.

International conventions and binding obligations potentially engaged if proven

Legal caution: PASO does not allege that all instruments listed below are already proven as breached. PASO identifies the conventions, treaties, Security Council obligations and legal regimes that may be engaged if evidence confirms that France, France-linked actors, Ukrainian relays, media platforms, officials, intermediaries or support networks knowingly enabled, tolerated, facilitated, financed, legitimized, armed, protected or failed to investigate actors operating in a JNIM-linked sequence.

The dossier now separates three levels: Level A already central (UNSCR 1373, 1267/2253/2734, Rome Statute, French terrorism law); Level B to add now (UN Charter, Geneva/Common Article 1, Arms Trade Treaty, Terrorist Financing Convention, UNTOC/Firearms); Level C conditional annexes (Genocide, Slavery, Torture, Enforced Disappearance, CRC-OPAC, Hostages, Bombings, cultural-property where evidenced).

Expanded deliverables package — proper complaints and state-only routes

Each file is routed to the mechanism that can lawfully process it. The package includes dedicated complaint/referral documents and one state-filing facilitation packet for Burkina Faso.