Malian forces are back in control of \u200ba town on the Niger border that Islamic State-linked insurgents entered this week, \u200cresidents said on Wednesday, as they pushed to regain control of territory following\u00a0coordinated attacks\u00a0over the weekend.<\/p>\n
Mali’s military leader Assimi Goita made his\u00a0first appearance\u00a0on Tuesday since al Qaeda-linked insurgents and a coalition of mostly Tuareg separatists \u200blaunched their assault on Saturday, killing the defence minister and delivering a blow to\u00a0Russian \u200bmercenaries backing the army.<\/p>\n
The attacks risked triggering a scramble for territory across Mali’s \u2060vast desert north, raising the prospect of significant gains by armed groups that have shown \u200ban increasing willingness to strike neighbouring countries and, analysts say, could eventually set their sights further afield.<\/p>\n
Two \u200bresidents in the town of Menaka, near the Niger border, told Reuters that fighters from Islamic State in the Sahel Province, an Islamic State affiliate, had retreated after clashes with the army, which had resumed land and \u200bair patrols.<\/p>\n
A senior diplomatic source also said the army had reasserted control there.<\/p>\n
MALIAN TROOPS STEP \u200bUP PATROLS<\/strong><\/p>\n In Mali’s central Mopti region, which was hit by the weekend attacks, calm had also returned as of \u200cWednesday, \u2060though people remained uneasy and on high alert, a resident said.<\/p>\n The army appeared to have increased checkpoints and stepped up ground and air patrols around the city, he said.<\/p>\n A resident of Gao, the biggest city in northern Mali, reported an increase in army patrols as civilians braced for \u200bfurther attacks.<\/p>\n In the central town \u200bof Sevare, tensions \u2060remained high on Wednesday, according to a witness, who said shots had been heard overnight.<\/p>\n On Monday the witness saw dead bodies, including civilians, \u200bsoldiers and insurgents, and said the hospital morgue was full to capacity.<\/p>\n After \u200bdisappearing from \u2060public view for several days, Goita on Tuesday vowed to neutralise those responsible for Saturday’s attacks, which featured open coordination between the al Qaeda-linked insurgents and the Tuareg separatists, who seized the strategic town \u2060of Kidal \u200bfrom Russian-backed Malian forces.<\/p>\n Goita also met with the Russian \u200bambassador on Tuesday and visited a hospital where the wounded were receiving treatment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malian forces are back in control of \u200ba town on the Niger border that Islamic State-linked insurgents entered this week, \u200cresidents said on Wednesday, as they pushed to regain control of territory following\u00a0coordinated attacks\u00a0over the weekend. Mali’s military leader Assimi Goita made his\u00a0first appearance\u00a0on Tuesday since al Qaeda-linked insurgents and a coalition of mostly Tuareg […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13002,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":6,"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":[1],"tags":[319,187,383,1454],"class_list":["post-20677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis-reports","tag-assimi-goita","tag-mali","tag-niger","tag-tuareg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20677","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=20677"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20677\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20678,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20677\/revisions\/20678"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20677"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20677"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20677"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}