The Kremlin said on \u200bThursday that Russian forces would stay in Mali to help the military-led government battle insurgents as \u200cWest Africa’s al Qaeda affiliate claimed to have seized more territory.<\/p>\n
Mali’s military rulers are trying to reassert control after coordinated weekend attacks by al Qaeda-linked insurgents and a coalition of mostly Tuareg separatists killed the country’s defence minister and forced Russian contractors to withdraw \u200bfrom a strategic town.<\/p>\n
The attacks have raised the prospect of significant territorial gains by armed groups that \u200bhave increasingly struck neighbouring countries and, analysts say, could eventually set their sights further afield.<\/p>\n
Kremlin \u2060spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke after a reporter asked how Moscow responded to a purported statement from the insurgents \u200bcalling on Russia to leave Mali, claiming the ruling military junta would not survive for long without Russian support.<\/p>\n
“Russia’s \u200bpresence there is, in fact, due to the need identified by the current government. Russia will continue, including in Mali, to combat extremism, terrorism and other harmful phenomena and will continue to provide assistance to the current government,” said Peskov.<\/p>\n
Political analysts say Russia’s image \u200bas a self-styled security guarantor in Africa\u00a0has been dented\u00a0by the events and that its strategic and economic interests \u200bon the continent are now threatened by the turmoil.<\/p>\n
AL QAEDA CLAIMS MORE GROUND<\/strong><\/p>\n In a video message distributed on Thursday, the al \u200cQaeda affiliate, \u2060Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), boasted that it had captured the military base of Hombori in central Mali, and taken control of two checkpoints near the Malian capital. Reuters verified the footage showed the barracks using satellite and archive imagery from the area.<\/p>\n JNIM earlier this week threatened to implement a complete siege of Bamako, a city of 4 \u200bmillion people. The group has \u200bpreviously imposed a\u00a0fuel blockade\u00a0\u2060on the capital, where many rely on generators for power.<\/p>\n “A full-scale blockade on Bamako will likely force the Malian military to prioritise securing the capital and deprioritize other areas \u2014 \u200bfurther complicating efforts to regain control,” said H\u00e9ni Nsaibia, senior West Africa analyst at \u200bU.S. crisis-monitoring group \u2060ACLED, in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n The government on Thursday held a state funeral for Russia-trained defence minister, Sadio Camara, who was killed when four\u00a0suicide car bombers\u00a0rammed his residence during the weekend and struck other targets around the vast desert country.<\/p>\n The \u2060army \u200bsaid Thursday it had carried out strikes on Kidal, the strategic town \u200brecaptured by Tuareg separatists at the weekend. Kidal was previously under government control after the army seized it with Russian help in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Kremlin said on \u200bThursday that Russian forces would stay in Mali to help the military-led government battle insurgents as \u200cWest Africa’s al Qaeda affiliate claimed to have seized more territory. Mali’s military rulers are trying to reassert control after coordinated weekend attacks by al Qaeda-linked insurgents and a coalition of mostly Tuareg separatists killed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"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":[2362,1129,27],"tags":[1501,4096,187,373],"class_list":["post-20681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-al-qaeda","tag-kremlin","tag-mali","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20681","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=20681"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20683,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20681\/revisions\/20683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}