Ministry of Defence sends military emails meant for US Pentagon to Russia’s ally Mali in blunder
MILITARY emails meant for the Pentagon were sent to Russia’s ally Mali due to a typo.
Staff dropped an “i” from the US military’s “.mil” address which routed them to the West African nation.
Mali’s domain name ends “.ml”. The Ministry of Defence confirmed that up to 20 messages were sent in error.
A spokesman said: “We have opened an investigation after a small number of emails were mistakenly forwarded to an incorrect email domain.”
He said the emails were “not classified at secret or above”.
The spokesman added: “We are confident they did not contain any information that could compromise operational security or technical data.” A defence source said MoD systems stop users sending secret information to unknown addresses.
A similar blunder by US officials, meanwhile, saw thousands of emails go awry.
Mali was one of a handful of countries to attend President Vladimir Putin’s Russia-Africa 2023 summit this week.
Its military leader Colonel Assimi Goïta, who has twice seized power in a coup, had earlier welcomed Russia’s Wagner Group fighters to prop up his fragile regime.
In response, Britain withdrew its 250 troops who formed a long-range desert reconnaissance group for a UN peacekeeping mission.
They disrupted local terror gangs and were fired on by a Malian air force helicopter.
The rocket came dangerously close, it was said, but no one was hurt.
It came as Wagner stepped up its training of local forces.