By Rédaction Africanews with AFP
Jihadists and their separatist Tuareg allies fought on Monday to control a key camp in northern Mali where Russian paramilitaries and forces from the country’s military junta have been holed up.
The Al-Qaeda-linked JNIM jihadists and Tuareg FLA separatists launched coordinated attacks in the region on Saturday, just over two months after another major offensive in which they captured the strategic northern town of Kidal and killed the troubled west African country’s defence minister.
The FLA claimed control of Anefis on Saturday, a location crucial to securing a grip on Kidal, which is about 100 kilometres (62 miles) away.
Russian paramilitaries from the Africa Corps and a few Malian soldiers were still inside a camp, and fighting was ongoing on Monday evening, according to the army.
“This morning, the rebels and their JNIM allies fired shells at the camp where the Russian fighters from Africa Corps and Malian army soldiers are entrenched. Last night, reports indicated that the Russians used kamikaze drones,” a security source told AFP.
Airstrikes
FLA reinforcements arrived in Anefis early Monday morning in several dozen armed vehicles, a local official told AFP.
“The fighting continued today (Monday) and will even continue tomorrow (Tuesday). Our men are holding the camp, that’s for sure,” a Malian military source at the army general staff in Gao told AFP.
Malian army reinforcements that left Gao further south on Sunday were forced to turn back after being targeted by the FLA, another security source told AFP.
“Between five and eight military vehicles” were destroyed in the ambush, according to Wamaps, a collective of west African journalists specialising in security issues in the Sahel region.
On Monday, the army said aircraft had “carried out a series of strikes” targeting “strategic points” and the centre of Anefis, leading to the “neutralisation” of several JNIM and FLA fighters.
On Sunday, the African Union said it “strongly condemned the coordinated terrorist attacks”.
“These attacks are a stark reminder that terrorism and violent extremism continue to pose a serious threat to Mali, the Sahel and the African continent as a whole,” said AU Commission chairman Mahmoud Ali Youssouf.
Since coups in 2020 and 2021, Mali has been led by the military.
Its junta leaders had promised to restore calm in the vast nation, which has been grappling with a security crisis since 2012, but so far have mostly failed to deliver.
In their joint assault in April, the Tuareg FLA (Azawad Liberation Front) and JNIM (the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims) took Kidal, which had been seized in November 2023 by the Malian army and allied fighters from the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary force now replaced by Africa Corps.