Insurgents in Mali staged attacks in at least five locations early on Saturday, including at a prison in Kenieroba, according to an army statement. The fighting comes more than two months after the country's defence minister was killed.
Insurgents in Mali staged attacks in at least five locations early on Saturday, including a northern town where government and Russian fighters are based and a town south of the capital Bamako, the army said in a statement.
The attacks by jihadists and their separatist Tuareg allies were reported in Gao, Anefis and Sevare, as well as a prison in Kenieroba. The fighting, which started around 4am (04:00 GMT), came more than two months after the same groups staged attacks against the junta in which the country's defence minister was killed.
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Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesman for the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), an ethnic Tuareg separatist movement, told AFP that "several positions have fallen, but fighting is still underway inside the city" of Anefis.
A resident there contacted by AFP said that "armed groups are in the town, but the army is still putting up resistance".
"The camp [there] has not yet fallen," they said.
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Wassim Nasr, a FRANCE 24 journalist specialising in jihadist movements, said that Anefis seemed to be the main target of the coordinated assaults.
“All the attacks were conducted to take a very strategic town – which is Anefis, a few kilometres away from Kidal – which the rebels and the jihadists took on the 25th of April,” he said. “So the focus is on the town of Anefis – they took it, but still there’s a military barracks in Anefis and Aguelhok, where we have the Africa Corps Russian mercenaries.”
Africa Corps is a Moscow-backed paramilitary group that has been supporting Mali's military junta since 2025, when it took over from the Wagner Group.
Anefis and Aguelhok are the last remaining locations where Mali's army maintains a presence in the Kidal region following the massive attacks of April 25 and 26.
In a major blow to the ruling military junta, the strategic northern Malian city of Kidal fell under the control of FLA fighters during the late-April offensives.
In Gao to the north, residents contacted by AFP reported gunfire and "loud blasts" near an army camp.
In the central town of Sevare, "explosions rang out... around 5am, though their origin is not yet known. Shortly thereafter, several aircraft were spotted flying over the area", a security source told AFP.
The major Kenieroba prison complex, where jihadists among others are held and located a few dozen kilometres from the capital Bamako, was also under attack.
"We are under our beds, the gunfire continues," a prisoner told AFP.
(FRANCE 24 with Reuters and AFP)
