BAMAKO - Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, head of a group of five countries in Africa's Sahel region, has asked the United States to remove a travel ban on Chadian nationals, saying that a failure to do so could affect Chad's security commitments.
Security analysts expressed surprise when Chad, a key US security partner since the Cold War, was named last week alongside North Korea and Venezuela as part of an eight-country the travel ban.
Chad's army acts as a bulwark against local and regional armed movements and played a critical role in pushing back troops from jihadist group Boko Haram when they made a bid to expand beyond northeastern Nigeria in 2015. Its troops continue to hold front-line positions in unstable north Mali where jihadists ousted government authorities five years ago.