On Sunday, April 24, the Malian army announced the deaths of six soldiers in three simultaneous attacks on military camps in central Mali. These attacks, carried out by “armed terrorist groups” on Sunday “around 5 a.m.”. [qui] “Kamikaze vehicles loaded with explosives” left a total of “six dead” and twenty injured in the three camps attacked in Sévaré, Bapho and Niono, the Malian army said in a statement.
Those attacks were alleged by Fulani preacher Amadou Koufa’s Katiba Macina in an audio message sent to AFP on Sunday by sources close to that group. This unit of fighters reports to Iyad Ag Ghaly, the leader of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), which is linked to al-Qaeda. “This Sunday morning, the mujahideen Katiba Macina attacked three FAMa camps [Forces armées maliennes] says this audio message in the Bambara language, citing Ségou, Bapho and Niono. “We hit these bearings simultaneously with a five-minute gap. [Outre les] dead, we caused them material damage” and “destroyed camps,” the jihadists added.
Also read: Mali: In the information war, the French army reacts and blames the Wagner group
Ségou is not one of the camps led by the Malian army that Sévaré mentioned among the camps attacked, contrary to the authors of the claim. According to the army, six Malian soldiers were killed in these attacks, fifteen wounded in Sévaré, one in Bapho and four in Niono. Eleven attackers died in Sévaré, “including the suicide bomber,” according to the army, which reports that “a lot of military equipment” was recovered from the attackers.
In addition, an FAMa unit “on patrol” on the Moura-Tenenko axis (middle) “was ambushed”. […] during which ten terrorists were neutralized,” the army said in a separate statement released Sunday night. After Sunday morning’s attacks, the army “arrested three suspects in Sévaré, [qui] were made available to the gendarmerie for investigations,” the separate statement said.
A deep security crisis
On Twitter, the UN mission in Mali “strongly condemned the attacks on the FAMa in Sévaré, Niono and Bapho”. Minusma says it “immediately deployed a rapid reaction force to Sévaré at the request of the FAMa.”
Plunged into a deep security crisis since 2012, which the deployment of foreign armed forces could not solve, Mali has experienced two military coups since August 2020. Starting in the north of the country, jihadist violence previously spread towards the center and south. The conflict was complicated by the emergence of vigilante groups and criminal gangs. The conflict has killed thousands of civilians and combatants, and central Mali is currently one of the key trouble spots in the Sahel.
The soldiers, who have been in power since 2020, moved closer to Moscow at the same time as they turned away from France, and have been involved militarily in the country against the jihadists since 2013. Mali has appealed massively to the Russian “instructors” it has presented Westerners (particularly Paris and Washington) denounce the presence in the country of “mercenaries” from the private Russian group Wagner, which the Malian leaders in power firmly deny. In February, amid a diplomatic crisis with the junta, Paris announced the withdrawal of its troops stationed in Mali, an operation due to be completed this summer.
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