Jihadists and their separatist Tuareg allies hit Mali with fresh coordinated attacks Saturday, striking multiple towns and a prison just months after hobbling the country's military junta with a similar wave of assaults.

The fighting comes after the Al-Qaeda-linked JNIM jihadists and Tuareg FLA separatists in late April captured the strategic northern town of Kidal and killed Mali's defence minister.

On Saturday, they carried out their latest offensive in the northern towns of Gao, Anefis and Aguelhok, plus the central town of Sevare and at a prison in Kenieroba near the west African nation's capital.

Since coups in 2020 and 2021, Mali has been led by the military, which promised to restore calm in the vast desert nation that has been grappling with a security crisis since 2012.

The Mali military, backed by Africa Corps, the Moscow-controlled paramilitary group, has intensified operations following the large-scale April 25-26 attacks.

The Tuareg FLA (Azawad Liberation Front) teamed up with JNIM (the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims) approximately a year ago, stepping up pressure on their joint nemesis, the country's military leaders.

"All these operations, which are intermediate steps pending a more spectacular assault, contribute to weakening and isolating the regime", Bakary Sambe, director of the Dakar-based Timbuktu Institute, told AFP.

The Malian army confirmed the rebel assaults on the four towns and Kenieroba on Facebook Saturday morning, asserting that "these attacks were vigorously repelled" and that "the situation is completely under control."

However, sources consulted by AFP indicated that fighting was still ongoing.

Mali has been grappling with a security crisis since 2012 by jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group and community-based criminal groups and separatists.

In their joint assault in April, the Tuareg rebels and jihadists took Kidal, which had been taken in November 2023 by the Malian army and allied fighters from the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary force now replaced by Africa Corps.

Mali junta leader General Assimi Goita has aligned the country with Russia, turning its back on its former colonial power France.

The rebels plus the Malian army and its Russian allies have committed "grave abuses" against civilians since the April attacks, Human Rights Watch said in a report last month.

The April attacks were reminiscent of a 2012 crisis when Tuareg rebels allied with jihadists captured strategic hubs in the country's vast, remote north.

A historically nomadic people, Tuaregs, who are spread across Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso, have waged an armed struggle for decades against marginalisation, with action centred in particular around Kidal.

Meanwhile, JNIM had since September been waging a series of attacks on fuel tanker convoys heading for Mali's capital, which reached its peak last October. (AFP)


Edited by Tony Sabine