DAKAR, Senegal — Malian Minister of Defense Gen. Sadio Camara was killed in an attack as jihadi and rebel forces seized towns and military bases across the country, according to a military officer and two other sources Sunday.
There was no immediate comment from the Malian government.
“Unfortunately, the Ministry of Defense, Gen. Sadio Camara, has been killed during the attack which targeted his house yesterday,” said a military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he did not have permission to speak to the media.
Two other people, a civil society leader and a security member, confirmed the information.
Separatist fighters on Saturday joined Islamic militants in launching one of the biggest coordinated attacks on the Malian army in the capital and several other cities, which left an unknown number of militants dead and at least 16 people wounded, including civilians, the government said.
The separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali, while militants aligned with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group have been fighting the government for more than a decade.
Malian troops and Russian mercenaries withdrew from the northern city of Kidal after the attacks, the rebels said Sunday.
A spokesperson for the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, a separatist group, said the Russian Africa Corps troops and the Malian military withdrew from the city after an agreement was reached for their peaceful exit.
“Kidal is declared free,” FLA spokesperson Mohamed El Maouloud Ramadan said.
The Malian army did not respond to requests for comment but in an earlier statement said it was “tracking down terrorist armed groups in Kidal.”
The separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali. Kidal had long served as a stronghold of the rebellion before being taken by Malian government forces and Russian mercenaries in 2023. Its capture marked a significant symbolic victory for the junta and its Russian allies.
It was the first time the separatists worked alongside the Al Qaeda-linked militant group JNIM, which also claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attacks on Bamako’s international airport and four other cities, including Kidal, in central and northern Mali.
“This operation is being carried out in partnership with the JNIM, which is also committed to defending the people against the military regime in Bamako,” Ramadan said.
Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center security think tank, said that the coordination between the two groups, as well as the explicit call for the Russian military to leave, is new.
“The coordination, conducting attacks all over the country at the same time — real coordination on the military level but also on the political level, because both claims of both groups they acknowledged that they worked together — this is a first,” said Nasr.
Malian government spokesperson Gen. Issa Ousmane Coulibaly said on state television late Saturday that 16 people were wounded, including civilians and military personnel, and that several militants were killed. He did not provide a death toll.
The governor of Bamako’s district, Abdoulaye Coulibaly, announced a three-day overnight curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.
The Economic Community of West African States, a regional bloc known as ECOWAS, condemned the attacks Sunday and called on “all states, security forces, regional mechanisms and populations of West Africa to unite and mobilize in a coordinated effort to combat this scourge.”
The separatists called on Russia to “reconsider its support for the military junta in Bamako, whose actions have contributed to the suffering of the civilian population.”
Following military coups, the juntas in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso turned from Western allies to Russia for help combating Islamic militants. But the security situation has worsened in recent times, with a record number of attacks by militants. Government forces have also been accused of killing civilians they suspect of collaborating with militants.
In 2024, an Al Qaeda-linked group claimed an attack on Bamako’s airport and a military training camp in the capital, killing scores of people.
Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said that while the attacks undermined the credibility of Mali’s Russian partners, JNIM is unlikely to take control of Bamako in the near term given opposition from the local population.
“The attacks are a major blow to Russia, as the mercenaries had no intelligence about the attacks and were unable to protect major cities. They have unnecessarily worsened the conflict by not distinguishing between civilians and combatants,” Laessing said.
Mcmakin writes for the Associated Press.
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