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06-05-2026
BAMAKO: Malian authorities say they are investigating soldiers suspected of involvement in a wave of simultaneous attacks on army bases across the country last week, claimed by an al-Qaeda affiliate and separatists.
A prosecutor at a military tribunal near the capital, Bamako, said in a statement on Friday that five suspects had been identified, including three active-duty soldiers, one retired person and a soldier who was killed in fighting near a Bamako army base.
“The first arrests have been successfully carried out, and all other perpetrators, co-perpetrators, and accomplices are actively being sought,” the statement said.
The coordinated assault on the morning of April 25 struck at the heart of the West African country’s military government, which took power after coups in 2020 and 2021.
The defence minister was killed and Russian forces backing the government were forced out of the northern town of Kidal, which al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and Tuareg separatists of the Liberation Front for Azawad (FLA) now control.
The violence has set off fighting across Mali’s vast desert north, raising the prospect of significant gains by armed groups that have shown increasing willingness to strike neighboring countries.
JNIM has called on Malians to rise up against the government and transition to Islamic law. The group has also pledged to besiege Bamako, and on Friday security sources told the Reuters news agency it had set up checkpoints around the city of four million.
Military leader Assimi Goita said in a televised address on Tuesday that the situation was under control and promised to “neutralize” the armed groups behind the attacks.
Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a German think tank, said the “big test” will be whether the government can hold on to larger cities in the north, such as Timbuktu and Gao.
“If they also fall, then anything might happen,” Laessing told media.
Armed violence has intensified in Mali since Saturday after an al-Qaeda-linked armed group working with separatists attacked several military bases across multiple cities, including areas where senior government officials live, and took control of the northern city of Kidal.
Malian Defence Minister Sadio Camara and his family were killed in their home in Kati, a military garrison close to the capital, Bamako, the government announced on Sunday. Armed groups have announced that they are laying siege to Bamako.
Mali has been beset by security crises since at least 2012. Al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) controls swaths of rural territory, especially in the north and central regions, and has active cells around the capital. Similarly, the ISIL (ISIS) affiliate in Sahel Province (ISSP) controls areas in northeastern Menaka city. At the same time, armed Tuareg separatists of the Liberation Front for Azawad (FLA) group, fighting for an independent nation called Azawad, also in the north, are clashing with the military and allied Russian mercenaries who have been deployed since 2021. They control Kidal now, along with the JNIM, but they also want GAO, the largest city in the north, Menaka and Timbuktu, to complete the self-declared state of Azawad.
These groups sometimes work together: they operate in the same areas and draw from the same pool of fighters from aggrieved communities.
Russian mercenaries have been fighting alongside the Malian army since 2021. There are about 2,000 Russian fighters in the country at present, with another 400 or so others in neighboring, military-led Niger and Burkina Faso. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
