A rare joint offensive by Tuareg separatists and militants linked to Al Qaeda in Mali over the weekend represented a major setback for the West African country’s military regime and its Russian paramilitary partners.
No death toll has been confirmed by the two groups that claimed responsibility for the attacks: JNIM, the Qaeda-linked group; and the Azawad Liberation Front, an armed separatist movement of the Tuareg ethnic minority.
The insurgent groups targeted military barracks and security installations in at least five key cities across Mali: Kati, Mopti-Sévaré, Gao, Kidal and Bamako, the capital. Maj. Gen. Oumar Diarra, chief of the general staff of Mali’s military, told state-run TV on Sunday that more than 200 terrorists had been killed. A government spokesman said the attack had killed civilians and soldiers, but did not say how many.
The country’s powerful defense minister, Lt. Gen. Sadio Camara, was also killed in the coordinated attacks. General Camara was considered a key liaison between the Malian Army and Russian paramilitary forces.
Fighting continued in some areas on Monday, in a major escalation of insurgent violence in the Sahel, a vast region in West Africa where military leaders had seized power in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger in recent years.
The juntas had severed ties with Western partners and West African neighbors, and pivoted toward Russia, which had promised to help eradicate Islamist insurgents across the region. Here’s what you need to know about the growing violence.
What is Russia doing in Mali?
For more than a decade, Mali has battled several Islamist jihadist groups and separatist militants. The main ones are JNIM and the Islamic State Sahel Province, an ISIS affiliate known as ISSP. The groups operate across vast, mostly ungoverned spaces in the central Sahel states of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, but have lately expanded into coastal countries such as Benin and Togo.
Mali had been supported by United Nations peacekeepers and French troops in the effort to fight the armed groups. But after the government of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was toppled in a coup, the military-led government expelled French and U.N. forces, and terminated security cooperation with the United States.
Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso also left the decades-old West Africa alliance ECOWAS and formed their own bloc, the Alliance of Sahel States. Last year, all of them postponed elections indefinitely, citing security concerns.
As French and U.N. forces left, Mali drastically pivoted toward Russia, deploying thousands of fighters from its Africa Corps, formerly called Wagner. The private military company, overseen by Russian military intelligence, provides security support to several African governments in exchange for payment or lucrative contracts for access to resources.
But since the Russians arrived, the security situation in Mali has deteriorated. The Sahel has become the world’s deadliest terrorism hot spot, according to the Global Terrorism Index. Russian fighters and their Malian counterparts have faced a series of major defeats in recent years, leaving dozens of Wagner fighters dead.
Russian fighters and their Malian soldiers have been accused of targeting civilians in retaliation, according to human rights groups. In Mali, Russian fighters and Malian soldiers killed at least 918 civilians last year, compared with 232 civilians killed by JNIM and ISSP, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project, or A.C.L.E.D., a U.S.-based research group.
Sanctions imposed by the United States on Malian officials, including General Camara, over human rights abuses committed alongside Russian fighters were lifted after a senior State Department official, Nick Checker, visited Mali in February.
Some saw the visit as an attempt by the United States to reset ties in the Sahel.
What do the recent attacks mean for the government?
The scale of the coordinated assault represents a significant blow to the authorities in Bamako and their Russian partners.
In a statement on Saturday, JNIM and the Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, claimed to have captured the northern city of Kidal and the central city of Mopti, as well as military bases in nearby Sevaré and in Gao, but analysts said the situation remained fluid and rapidly changing.
“That the attack struck at the heart of power also carries strong symbolic weight, as it directly targeted the regime’s inner circle,” said Héni Nsaibia, a senior West Africa analyst at A.C.L.E.D. He added that the capture of Kidal, a city the Malian military reclaimed from the insurgents only in 2023, points to “an increasingly unstable political and security situation” in the country.
There was an uneasy calm in Bamako on Monday as flags were at half-staff after the announcement of two days of mourning. In a statement, Mali’s military said it was intensifying large-scale patrols and reinforcing checkpoints in the country, adding that it was continuing operations against armed groups in Kidal and other parts of Mali.
In Kidal, JNIM appeared to be in control. Russia’s Africa Corps said in a statement on Monday that its forces had “left Kidal together with the troops of the Malian government in a joint decision with the leadership of the Republic of Mali.”
The situation in the central city of Mopti, Sevaré and in Gao remained unclear.
“For all the three cities, the rebel coalition is entrenched around them and waiting for the orders and finalities of the negotiations,” said Brant Philip, an independent researcher on Islamist terrorism in West Africa. “Yesterday, it was only the Russians; now the government, as well. But this isn’t the consensus. The army is now fragmented; commanders are now negotiating for their own troops.”
What do the two groups want?
Gen. Assimi Goita, the country’s president, has not been seen in public and has not made any public statements since the assault. Operations at the airport in Bamako resumed Sunday after a 24-hour shutdown, according to local news reports.
Analysts said JNIM’s leadership aimed to grow the group into both a political and military organization and to push for a negotiated settlement.
Islamist groups and separatists are active in large parts of Mali. JNIM has de facto control in several communities it has forced to pay taxes, adhere to its interpretation of Islamic law and cease support for the government.
The attack on Saturday, after a monthslong fuel blockage in central Mali, forced schools and businesses to shut down, in what analysts interpreted as an attempt to spur a coup.
Analysts said JNIM has lately been inspired by Syria, where a rebel group once allied with Al Qaeda toppled the longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in late 2024 and aimed to grow into a political and military organization.
Mali is unlikely to collapse like Syria, they said, though it remained unclear whether the authorities and insurgents would move toward negotiation or escalation.
Saikou Jammeh is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Dakar, Senegal.
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