An al Qaeda affiliate and Tuareg rebels claimed responsibility on Saturday for\u00a0coordinated attacks\u00a0across Mali, in one of the boldest operations \u200binsurgents have mounted in their campaign against the military-led government.<\/p>\n
Mali’s army said in a statement it had killed “several hundred” assailants and repelled the assault, which hit \u200cmultiple sites in or near the capital, Bamako. It said a large-scale sweep operation was underway in Bamako, the nearby barracks town of Kati and elsewhere in the gold-producing country.<\/p>\n
It was unclear how many soldiers or civilians were killed in the attacks. In a statement read out on state television on Saturday evening, the government spokesperson, Issa Ousmane Coulibaly, said 16 people had been injured.<\/p>\n
Coulibaly said the situation was completely under control in all \u200baffected areas. Bamako authorities announced an overnight curfew lasting three days.<\/p>\n
Al Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) issued a statement, published by SITE Intelligence Group, claiming responsibility for attacks \u200bin Kati, on the Bamako airport and in localities further north, including Mopti, Sevare and Gao.<\/p>\n
It also said the city of Kidal was “captured” \u2060in an operation coordinated with the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg-dominated rebel group.<\/p>\n
FLA spokesperson Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane earlier said on social media that its forces had taken control of positions in Gao \u200band one of two military camps in Kidal.<\/p>\n
“This looks like the biggest coordinated attack for years,” said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel \u200bprogramme at Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation.<\/p>\n
AIRPORT CLOSED, EMBASSIES ISSUE WARNINGS<\/strong><\/p>\n The U.S. embassy told its citizens to shelter in place and Britons were advised against travel to Mali, where the army said it had been attacked by unidentified “terrorist” groups.<\/p>\n The airport was closed, with flights turned back or cancelled. South of Bamako, people trying to access the airport had found themselves almost inside a combat zone, with heavy gunfire nearby and helicopters overhead, one passenger \u200bsaid.<\/p>\n Two explosions and sustained gunfire were heard shortly before 6 a.m. near the military’s main base in Kati, north of Bamako, and shots were still ringing out there more than four \u200bhours later, a Reuters witness and two residents said.<\/p>\n Two witnesses said Mali Defence Minister Sadio Camara’s house in Kati was destroyed in the attack.<\/p>\n A witness in the central town of Sevare said shooting began there \u200cat 5 \u2060a.m. and that gunfire had come from all directions.<\/p>\n The selection of targets was remarkable, said Heni Nsaibia, senior West Africa analyst at Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project.<\/p>\n Kati and Bamako are “at the heart of the regime” and Kidal, the site of a symbolic military victory in 2023, has been central to the government’s “narrative of regaining territorial control,” he said.<\/p>\n UNEASY CALM, OVERNIGHT CURFEW<\/strong><\/p>\n The army had said shortly after 11 a.m. that the situation was under control, but a resident of Gao – a major military hub in the north – reported hearing a loud explosion and exchanges of fire between \u200bsoldiers and insurgents at around 12 p.m.<\/p>\n By evening, \u200ban uneasy calm prevailed in Gao, where \u2060the governor declared an overnight curfew, the same source said.<\/p>\n Saturday’s attacks signal a potential escalation in an insurgency which began in 2012.<\/p>\n In September 2024, JNIM\u00a0attacked\u00a0a gendarmerie training school near Bamako airport, killing some\u00a070 people\u00a0and a year later announced a\u00a0blockade on fuel imports.<\/p>\n Mali is also grappling \u200bwith a much longer history of Tuareg-led rebellion in its north.<\/p>\n The current government, headed by Assimi Goita, took power after coups in 2020 \u200band 2021 with a pledge \u2060to restore security which it has so far\u00a0struggled\u00a0to deliver on.<\/p>\n Goita’s government, which has leant on Russian mercenaries for support while initially spurning cooperation with Western countries, has recently pursued closer ties with\u00a0Washington.<\/p>\n JNIM said on Saturday it had not targeted the Malian military’s Russian partners and wanted to build a “balanced and effective future relationship”, the SITE translation of its statement said.<\/p>\n Russia’s embassy in Bamako said in a \u2060post on social \u200bmedia that it strongly condemned the “cowardly” attacks.<\/p>\n “Efforts to eliminate the armed groups are continuing and preliminary information suggests \u200bthat Western security forces may have been involved in their training,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a separate statement.<\/p>\n Mali’s foreign minister told Reuters on Monday that neighbouring states and foreign powers were\u00a0supporting\u00a0terrorist groups, but declined to name the countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An al Qaeda affiliate and Tuareg rebels claimed responsibility on Saturday for\u00a0coordinated attacks\u00a0across Mali, in one of the boldest operations \u200binsurgents have mounted in their campaign against the military-led government. Mali’s army said in a statement it had killed “several hundred” assailants and repelled the assault, which hit \u200cmultiple sites in or near the capital, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20614,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,1129,27],"tags":[1501,187,4921,1456],"class_list":["post-20613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-al-qaeda","tag-mali","tag-sadio-camara","tag-tuareg-rebels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20615,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613\/revisions\/20615"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}