UK Investigates How Mali Received Defense Emails Intended for the Pentagon

LONDON (Reuters) – UK authorities are investigating a case where defence ministry emails were mistakenly sent to the wrong recipient, with reports suggesting that messages meant for U.S. military intelligence ended up in the hands of Russian ally Mali.

The Ministry of Defence officials were attempting to reach out to the Pentagon, whose domain name is “.mil,” but unintentionally redirected the emails to Mali, which uses the domain name “.ml,” according to The Times newspaper.

Given Mali’s growing alliance with Russia since a 2021 coup and its distancing from former colonial power France and other Western nations, concerns have been raised. Notably, Mali recently requested a United Nations peacekeeping force to leave the country.

The British government has assured that the shared information was not highly sensitive.

“We are currently conducting an investigation after a few emails were mistakenly forwarded to an incorrect email domain,” stated a Ministry of Defence spokesperson, refraining from confirming the recipient’s domain name.

“We are confident that these emails did not contain any information that could compromise operational security or technical data,” they added.

In a recent Financial Times report, it was revealed that millions of U.S. military emails had been misdirected to Mali’s domain over several years due to common typographical errors.

Despite the seriousness of the situation, British media outlets injected some levity, with the BBC opting for the headline “You’ve Got Mali” – a deliberate play on words alluding to the 1998 romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.

The Ministry of Defence of the United Kingdom emphasized that they take the incident seriously while downplaying the significance of the erroneous content sent.

“We utilize systems specifically developed to minimize the risk of misdirection when sharing sensitive information,” the spokesperson explained.

“The Ministry of Defence consistently reviews its processes and is currently engaged in a program aimed at enhancing information management, preventing data loss, and bolstering the control of sensitive information,” they concluded.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout; editing by John Stonestreet)