Fuel Blockade Threatens Mali’s Junta, Exposes Russia’s Limits

Jihadists in Mali have choked off fuel supplies to the capital, Bamako, threatening the junta’s grip on power and exposing the limits of Russia’s promised security support.

One of the Al-Qaeda-linked groups that’s ravaged the country for more than a decade — killing thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands more — has for the past two months encircled the city, attacking military convoys and enacting a fuel blockade that’s ground the impoverished country’s capital to a halt. Gas station lines stretch for miles, with cars and motorbikes idling in endless queues outside shuttered pumps.