BAMAKO: Jihadists and their separatist Tuareg allies hit Mali with fresh coordinated attacks Saturday, striking multiple towns and a prison just months after hobbling the country’s military junta with a similar wave of assaults.
The fighting comes after the Al-Qaeda-linked JNIM jihadists and Tuareg FLA separatists in late April captured the strategic northern town of Kidal and killed Mali’s defence minister.
On Saturday, they carried out their latest offensive in the northern towns of Gao, Anefis and Aguelhok, plus the central town of Sevare and at a prison in Kenieroba near the west African nation’s capital.
Since coups in 2020 and 2021, Mali has been led by the military. Its junta leaders had promised to restore calm in the vast desert nation that has been grappling with a security crisis since 2012, but so far have mostly failed to deliver.
The Mali military, backed by Africa Corps, the Moscow-controlled paramilitary group, has intensified operations following the large-scale April 25-26 attacks.
Approximately a year ago, the Tuareg FLA (Azawad Liberation Front) teamed up with JNIM (the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims) in an effort to combat their joint nemesis, the country’s military leaders.
All these operations “contribute to weakening and isolating the regime”, Bakary Sambe, director of the Dakar-based Timbuktu Institute, told AFP, predicting that they “are intermediate steps pending a more spectacular assault”.
By late afternoon, much of the fighting had died down.
The Malian army confirmed the rebel assaults on the four towns and Kenieroba on Facebook Saturday morning, asserting that “these attacks were vigorously repelled” and that “the situation is completely under control.” A regional elected official, however, said that rebels now controlled the town of Anefis, with Russians “entrenched in camp there” and “many” Malian military personnel taken prisoner.
FLA spokesman Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane had told AFP earlier in the day that “several positions” had fallen at Anefis.
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