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 attacks seem to have been focused on seizing the town of Anefis in Kidal region, which hosts fighters from the Russian mercenary group Africa Corps as well as Malian troops.
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, Aguelhok 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.
Watch moreMali in crisis: Jihadist fighters and Tuareg separatists threaten Bamako
By late afternoon, much of the fighting had died down.
A regional elected official said that rebels now controlled the town of Anefis, with Russians "entrenched in camp there" and "many" Malian military personnel taken prisoner.
Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesman for ethnic Tuareg separatist movement the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), had told AFP earlier in the day that "several positions" had fallen at Anefis, though he had added that fighting was still "underway" inside the city.
Read moreAll warring parties in Mali committed 'grave abuses' against civilians, report says
Wassim Nasr, a FRANCE 24 journalist specialising in jihadist movements, said that Anefis seemed to have been 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.
The strategic northern Malian city of Kidal fell under the control of FLA fighters during the late-April offensives.
By late afternoon, fighting had stopped in the northern town of Gao, a strategic location for controlling the region, local sources said.
Residents had told AFP earlier in the day that gunfire and "loud blasts" were heard near an army camp there.
The Malian army acknowledged one fatality in Gao and claimed to have "neutralised" a total of "20 terrorists" in the central town of Sevare.
The death toll could be severely understated, however, given that the military does not generally release information on losses.
Sevare, home to a large army base and an airport, was also calm by late afternoon according to local sources.
The halt in fighting followed "explosions that rang out ... around 5am", according to a security source.
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)
