Militants linked to al Qaeda and a Tuareg-led separatist group ambushed a military convoy in northern Mali over the weekend, \u200band a source close to the rebels said more \u200cthan 50 soldiers and allied Russian fighters were killed and others taken hostage.<\/p>\n
The attack marked the latest in a series of escalating assaults by the two \u200bgroups, which joined forces for nationwide attacks in April that \u200bkilled the defence minister and hit the airport in \u2060the capital Bamako, and launched a\u00a0second wave this month aimed at \u200bseizing the town of Anefis.<\/p>\n
The incident occurred on Saturday between Anefis \u200band the city of Gao in the north, according to statements from Mali’s armed forces, the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), and the al Qaeda-linked group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam \u200bwal Muslimin (JNIM).<\/p>\n
Mali’s army said the ambush happened in the Tabrichat \u200barea and was followed by retaliatory airstrikes that killed at least 20 insurgents.<\/p>\n
The FLA \u200cstatement \u2060said “dozens” of Malian soldiers and members of the Russian paramilitary Africa Corps had been “neutralised” and that there was considerable material damage.<\/p>\n
A source close to the FLA said more than 50 pro-government fighters were killed. \u200bReuters could not \u200bindependently confirm \u2060the death toll.<\/p>\n
JNIM shared footage online that appeared to show soldiers surrendering following the ambush, with their \u200bhands behind their heads, as well as rebels firing \u200bat \u2060some of their captives. Reuters has not independently verified the footage.<\/p>\n
The army has so far retained control of Anefis.<\/p>\n
The mounting violence poses a threat \u2060to \u200bMali’s military-led government which took power in \u200bcoups in 2020 and 2021 and promised to improve security in the landlocked Sahel \u200bcountry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Militants linked to al Qaeda and a Tuareg-led separatist group ambushed a military convoy in northern Mali over the weekend, \u200band a source close to the rebels said more \u200cthan 50 soldiers and allied Russian fighters were killed and others taken hostage. The attack marked the latest in a series of escalating assaults by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":8,"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":[1501,5203,40,373],"class_list":["post-21480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-al-qaeda","tag-azawad-liberation-front-fla","tag-bamako","tag-russia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21480","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=21480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21481,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21480\/revisions\/21481"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}