Mali in turmoil after insurgents seize towns and kill defence minister | Mali

Mali is reeling from a sweeping offensive by jihadists and separatist rebels who have seized scores of towns and military bases and killed the defense minister and military intelligence chief.

The weekend assault on the West African state’s security architecture was coordinated by the al-Qaeda-linked Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and the Tuareg-led separatist movement the Liberation Front of Azawad (FLA), former foes with different agendas.

Mali’s junta-ruled government says Malian defense minister Sadio Camara was killed in an attack on his home in the garrison town of Kati. A spokesman said a car loaded with explosives was driven into his home by a suicide attacker and Camara was injured in the ensuing shootout and died later in hospital.

Military intelligence chief Modibo Koné was also reportedly killed.

The attackers used car bombs and armed drones in their attacks on Kati, a junta stronghold just outside the capital Bamako, as well as the eastern city of Gao and the central towns of Mopti and Sévaré.

Heavy gunfire and explosions were heard near Modibo Keita international airport and the main military base in Kati. The airport is temporarily closed.

Videos of jihadists laughing and relaxing at the residence of the governor of Kidal, 250 miles (400km) south of the Algerian border, have emerged on social media. The Guardian has not independently verified the images.

JNIM and FLA were among the main actors in the overthrow of the civilian government of Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in 2020. Another coup in May 2021 led to young captain Assimi Goïta becoming head of the junta and the termination of the existing peace agreement between the government and the rebels.

Goïta, who is believed to be protected by a special military unit from Türkiye, which has provided military support to Mali in recent years, has not yet commented publicly on the weekend attacks.

Authorities have not yet announced the death toll but said Sunday the attack was over. Speaking on state television Sunday night, army chief Gen. Oumar Diarra said the army had left Kidal but Malian forces had “neutralized” more than 200 terrorists across the country and seized ammunition.

FLA spokesman Mohamed El Maouloud Ramadan claimed that soldiers of Russia’s African Corps, the successor to the mercenary Wagner Group, left Kidal, which separatists have long coveted as their capital, after an agreement was reached for their peaceful departure.

Mali has long been fighting militants linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State, as well as separatist insurgencies in the north. The Islamic State – Sahel State (ISSP), formerly known as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (IS-GS), was not heard from over the weekend.

Like other countries in the region that have fallen to the junta, Mali reached a security agreement with the Wagner Group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, after turning away from its western allies for help fighting Islamic militants. Camara oversaw the transition to the Afrika Korps following Prigozhin’s death in August 2023.

The partnership failed to produce results. For months last year, JNIM blockaded fuel trucks from neighboring Ivory Coast and Senegal, cutting off crucial supplies to the capital until a deal was reached.

Over the weekend, it was reported that an African Union Mi-8AMTSh helicopter was hit by a surface-to-air missile near Gao, killing all on board.

The attack was a serious setback for Moscow’s ambitions in the region, according to Ulf Laessing, head of the Bamako-based Sahel program at the German think tank Konrad Adenauer Foundation. “The attack was a disaster for Russia,” Laessing told Reuters. “They were unable to prevent the fall of the highly symbolic Tuareg stronghold of Kidal, and now they must abandon this northern city.”

Meanwhile, there were reports that a plane belonging to Ivory Coast was monitoring the border. Ivory Coast, which, like Nigeria, is seen as a French puppet of the Mali junta, maintains American cooperation for cross-border operations against Mali to the north and Burkina Faso, another Sahel country hit by jihadists.

In Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) issued a statement on Sunday calling for “all states, security forces, regional mechanisms and peoples in West Africa to unite and take action in a coordinated effort against the insurgency.”

Mali, along with Burkina Faso and Niger, left Ecowas in 2025 to form the parallel Alliance of Sahel States (AES). Ibrahim Traoré, Burkina Faso’s military chief and head of the AES, said attacks in Mali were “supported by the enemies of the Sahel liberation struggle” but did not provide any supporting evidence.

UN secretary-general António Guterres expressed deep concern about the violence, highlighting the vulnerability of the estimated 5 million people in Mali who need humanitarian assistance.