Mali Defence Minister Sadio Camara was killed in an attack on his residence, the \u200bgovernment said on Sunday, a high-profile fatality during coordinated assaults staged the previous day by insurgents including the West Africa al Qaeda \u200caffiliate.<\/p>\n
A car laden with explosives driven by a suicide attacker drove into Camara’s residence in the town of Kati, the spokesperson, Issa Ousmane Coulibaly, said in a statement read out on state television.<\/p>\n
A firefight ensued, and Camara sustained injuries from which he later died in a hospital, Coulibaly said, adding that Mali would observe two days of mourning.<\/p>\n
The statement followed media reports earlier in \u200bthe day, including by Reuters, that Camara had been killed during the operation in Kati, roughly 15 km (about 9 miles) north of the capital \u200bBamako, where the army’s main base is located.<\/p>\n
The regional al Qaeda affiliate, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, known as JNIM, cooperated with \u2060a Tuareg-dominated rebel group to carry out simultaneous attacks in over half a dozen places across the country, according to claims by both groups.<\/p>\n
The government has \u200bnot provided a death toll. Coulibaly on Sunday expressed condolences for “all civilian and military victims who died,” without providing a number.<\/p>\n
Analysts and diplomats described Saturday’s insurgent operation as \u200bone of the largest\u00a0coordinated attacks\u00a0in the country in recent years.<\/p>\n
The United Nations called for an international response to violence and terrorism in West Africa’s Sahel region.<\/p>\n
“The Secretary\u2011General is deeply concerned by reports of attacks in several locations across Mali. He strongly condemns these acts of violence,” a U.N. spokesperson posted on X.<\/p>\n
FATE UNCLEAR OF STRATEGIC CITY KIDAL<\/strong><\/p>\n In addition to Kati, Saturday’s \u200bstrikes hit near Bamako airport and in localities farther north, including Mopti, Sevare and Gao.<\/p>\n The fate of the strategic city of Kidal, a former stronghold for \u200bthe Azawad Liberation Front, or FLA, the Tuareg-dominated group that partnered with JNIM, was unclear on Sunday.<\/p>\n The FLA said in a statement that Kidal had fallen, and a spokesperson for \u200cthe group said \u2060on X that a deal had been struck to let Russian mercenaries leave a besieged camp outside the city where Malian armed forces were still entrenched.<\/p>\n But Mali’s army chief of staff, General Oumar Diarra, told the state broadcaster on Sunday that the military had tactically repositioned forces in Kidal and that operations in the area were ongoing.<\/p>\n Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel programme at the Germany-headquartered Konrad Adenauer Foundation, said the attack was a setback for Russia, which backed the military-led government after \u200bit kicked out French, U.S. and other \u200bWestern forces.<\/p>\n “For Russia the attack has \u2060been a disaster,\u201d Laessing said. \u201cThey were unable to prevent the fall of the highly symbolic Tuareg stronghold of Kidal and now need to leave this northern city.”<\/p>\n GOVERNMENT HAD PROMISED TO DELIVER GREATER SECURITY<\/strong><\/p>\n Russian state\u2011run broadcaster Vesti reported on Sunday that Russia’s \u200bAfrica Corps was repelling a large\u2011scale militant attack on Mali’s government.<\/p>\n According to Vesti, Russian personnel were responding along with units \u200bof Mali’s Presidential Guard \u2060and armed forces, preventing the presidential palace from being seized.<\/p>\n Vesti said some members of Russia’s Africa Corps were wounded, without providing further details.<\/p>\n Saturday’s attacks are the latest sign that Mali’s government has not delivered greater security despite promising to do so.<\/p>\n In September 2024, JNIM attacked a paramilitary police training school near the Bamako airport, killing about 70 \u2060people. More recently, \u200bit carried out a fuel blockade that has starved the capital’s residents and businesses of power \u200band supplies.<\/p>\n The government has recently pursued closer ties with Washington, which has sought to rebuild cooperation on security and explore mining opportunities.<\/p>\n Mali’s foreign minister told Reuters this past Monday that neighbouring states and \u200bforeign powers were backing terrorist groups, but declined to name the countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mali Defence Minister Sadio Camara was killed in an attack on his residence, the \u200bgovernment said on Sunday, a high-profile fatality during coordinated assaults staged the previous day by insurgents including the West Africa al Qaeda \u200caffiliate. A car laden with explosives driven by a suicide attacker drove into Camara’s residence in the town of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"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","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"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":[2362,33,1129,27],"tags":[1501,2850,5056,187,4921],"class_list":["post-20623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-al-qaeda","tag-jamaa-nusrat-ul-islam-wa-al-muslimin-jnim","tag-kati","tag-mali","tag-sadio-camara"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20623","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=20623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20625,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20623\/revisions\/20625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}