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Mali has been rattled by coordinated attacks carried out by several unidentified \u2060armed groups beginning on Saturday, escalating the political and security crisis in the country, which has been under military rule for most of the past 14 years.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, a military source told Al Jazeera that Mali\u2019s Defence Minister Sadio Camara had been killed amid coordinated attacks on military sites across the country, including the capital, Bamako. His residence in Kati was attacked on Saturday.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n \u201cThe General Staff of the Armed Forces informs the public that unidentified armed terrorist groups targeted certain locations and barracks in the capital and the interior early this morning, April 25, 2026. Fighting is ongoing,\u201d Mali\u2019s military said in a statement on Saturday.<\/p>\n Al-Qaeda-linked group Jama\u2019at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has claimed responsibility for attacks in Kati, near the capital, as well as the Bamako airport and other locations further north, including Mopti, Sevare and Gao. Tuareg rebels also claimed participation in the latest assaults.<\/p>\n The current military ruler, Assimi Goita, came to power in the 2021 coup on the promise to boost security amid the growing influence of armed groups in one of the most impoverished nations in the world. Goita has yet to make a public statement.<\/p>\n So, what is the latest situation in the country and have the armed attacks been contained?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what we know:<\/p>\n On Saturday morning, Mali\u2019s army said unidentified \u2060\u201cterrorist\u201d groups \u2060had attacked several military positions in \u200cBamako and the country\u2019s interior.<\/p>\n Two loud explosions and sustained gunfire were heard shortly before 6am (06:00 GMT) near Mali\u2019s main military base, Kati, just north of the capital. Soldiers were deployed to block roads, witnesses said.<\/p>\n There was similar unrest at around the same time in the central town of Sevare, and Kidal and Gao in the north.<\/p>\n Gunfire \u2060could be heard near a military camp close \u2060to the Bamako airport, where Russian mercenary forces are based, a resident told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n Heavy gunfire was also reported in Kati, where Goita also has his residence, witnesses told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n AFP reported that Kati residents uploaded images on social media showing their homes destroyed. \u201cWe are holed up in Kati,\u201d one resident said.<\/p>\n The military said in a statement it had killed \u201cseveral hundred\u201d assailants and repelled the assault, which hit multiple sites in or near Bamako. It is unclear how many assailants were killed.<\/p>\n It said the situation was under control, adding that a large-scale sweep operation was also under way in Bamako, the nearby barracks town of Kati and elsewhere in the gold-producing country.<\/p>\n Reporting from Dakar, Senegal, on Saturday, Al Jazeera\u2019s Nicolas Haque said the scale and coordination of the attack appeared to be unprecedented.<\/p>\n He said, despite the situation having come under control, \u201cthere\u2019s an unprecedented level of panic in the military ranks\u201d.<\/p>\n The African Union, the secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and the United States Bureau of African Affairs have condemned the attacks.<\/p>\n Indications that different armed groups launched a coordinated attack in Mali signal a \u201cvery dangerous development\u201d, according to Ulf Laessing, Sahel analyst at the German think tank Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.<\/p>\n He told Al Jazeera on Saturday that since the crisis began in 2012, security has been \u201cdegrading\u201d every year, and the government has little control over large areas of the country.<\/p>\n Mali\u2019s democratically elected President Amadou Toumani Toure was deposed in a coup led by soldiers in May 2012. His government was accused of failing to handle a Tuareg-led rebellion in the north.<\/p>\n Since then, the country has been experiencing a severe security and political crisis, armed rebellions and two military coups.<\/p>\n Mali is \u201ca vast territory, twice the size of France. Most\u00a0people live in the south, the north is desert and mountains \u2026 it\u2019s impossible to control it, not even the French could do it, let alone the Russians\u201d, Laessing said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no military solution\u201d, and armed groups are \u201centrenched\u201d in the countryside.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only good news is, so far, they [armed groups] haven\u2019t been able to control \u2026 larger cities,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The JNIM and Tuareg rebels have claimed responsibility for the attacks.<\/p>\n In a statement published by SITE \u200cIntelligence Group, JNIM claimed attacks in Kati, Bamako and in localities further north, including Mopti, Sevare and Gao.<\/p>\n JNIM is the Sahel affiliate of al-Qaeda and the most active armed group in the region, according to conflict monitor ACLED. Since September, JNIM fighters have been attacking fuel tankers, bringing Bamako to a standstill in October 2025.<\/p>\n It also imposed an economic and fuel blockade by sealing off major highways used by tankers transporting fuel from neighbouring Senegal and the Ivory Coast to the landlocked Sahel country.<\/p>\n For weeks, most of Bamako\u2019s residents were unable to buy any fuel for cars or motorcycles as supplies dried up, bringing the normally bustling capital to a standstill.<\/p>\n Despite several months of calm, Bamako residents faced a diesel shortage in March, with fuel prioritised for use in the energy sector.<\/p>\n On Saturday, the JNIM said the city of Kidal was \u201ccaptured\u201d in an operation coordinated with the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg-dominated rebel group.<\/p>\n Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesperson for FLA, said on social media \u2060that the group had taken control of multiple positions in Kidal and Gao. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the claim.<\/p>\n Videos posted online and verified by Al Jazeera showed armed men entering the National Youth Camp of Kidal on Saturday.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera\u2019s Haque noted that it seems the FLA is gaining ground in the north of the country.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s video footage circulating on social media showing some of these fighters entering the residence of the governor of Kidal,\u201d\u00a0 he said.<\/p>\n \u201cKidal is not the biggest town in the north, but it\u2019s high in symbolism because whoever holds the town of Kidal controls the north,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, deputy director for the Sahel at the International Crisis Group, says Malian authorities appear to have been caught off-guard by the latest wave of attacks.<\/p>\n Speaking to Al Jazeera from Dakar on Saturday, Ibrahim said the offensive fits into a broader pattern of escalating violence.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though it is hard to say that it is totally a surprise, I think it is just another dramatic episode in a series of spectacular attacks that we have witnessed in recent years by JNIM attacking the government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Witnesses told Al Jazeera\u2019s Haque that Russian mercenaries were involved in fighting in Bamako, around the airport, where they have one of their headquarters.<\/p>\n \u201cBut because there\u2019s been so much pressure on the Russia-Ukraine front, some of these Russian mercenaries are being pulled out from Mali, which is affecting the security situation in Mali now,\u201d Haque said.<\/p>\n Al Jazeera\u2019s Haque said that \u201cthe Russian mercenaries seem to have surrendered the town of Kidal or at least the military camp where they were with the Malian forces\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Tuareg fighters had asked them to surrender weapons. It is unclear whether they did that or not but what\u2019s clear is that the Russians are stepping out of the town of Kidal,\u201d he said, adding that\u00a0\u201cRussian mercenaries not fighting against armed fighters \u201cis something significant\u201d.<\/p>\n In June last year, Russia\u2019s Wagner group said it would withdraw from Mali after more than three and a half years on the ground. The paramilitary force said it had completed its mission against armed groups in the country.<\/p>\n But Wagner\u2019s withdrawal from Mali did not mean the departure of Russian fighters. Russian mercenaries have remained under the banner of the Africa Corps, a separate Kremlin-backed paramilitary group created after Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin led a failed mutiny against the Russian military in June 2023.<\/p>\n Besides Mali, Africa Corps is also active in other African countries, including Equatorial Guinea \u2060and the Central African Republic.<\/p>\n Since gaining independence in 1960, the West African country has experienced alternating cycles of political stability and instability, punctuated by rebellions, financial woes and military coups.<\/p>\n In 2012, ethnic Tuareg separatists, allied with fighters from an al-Qaeda offshoot, launched a rebellion that took control of the country\u2019s north.<\/p>\n But fighters from the armed group Ansar Dine swiftly pushed out the Tuareg rebels and seized key northern cities, triggering French military intervention in early 2013 at the request of the government. Ansar Dine and several other groups later merged to form the JNIM.<\/p>\n In September 2013, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was elected as president. His fragile democratic rule ended in 2020. Under his government, the United Nations brokered a peace deal between the government and northern Tuareg groups fighting for an independent Azawad in 2015.<\/p>\n President Keita was deposed in a military coup in August 2020 following months of mass protests over severe economic woes in the country and the advance of armed groups in the north. In September that year, Bah Ndaw, a retired colonel, was sworn in as interim president, with Goita as vice president, to lead a transitional government.<\/p>\n In May 2021, Goita, the leader of the previous year\u2019s power grab and vice president of the interim government, seized power in a second coup. Mali is currently being run by Goita\u2019s military government. Initially, the military government pledged to return to civilian rule in March 2024, but it has not kept the promise.<\/p>\n Goita invited Russian mercenaries to support the military administration in its fight against armed groups in December 2021 after asking the French troops to leave the country. This\u00a0created a security vacuum. In January 2024, Mali\u2019s rulers also terminated the 2015 peace deal with Tuareg rebels, accusing them of not complying with the agreement. This led to a breakdown in the country\u2019s security situation once again.<\/p>\n In September 2025, the JNIM began a fuel import blockade, crippling life in Bamako.<\/p>\n Mali, along with Niger and Burkina Faso, formally split last year from the West African regional bloc ECOWAS to form the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).<\/p>\n However, earlier this week, Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop attended a security forum in Senegal where he said the withdrawal was \u201cfinal\u201d, but added that the AES could maintain a constructive dialogue with ECOWAS on freedom of movement and preserving a common market.<\/p>\n \u201cEven for the Malian minister to come to this conference signals that they are afraid for themselves and they need to open up,\u201d Adama Gaye, political commentator on the Sahel and West Africa, told Al Jazeera. \u201cIt is also an indication that they want to reach out to ECOWAS.\u201d<\/p>\n Gaye added that the Goita-led military government \u201ccannot have legitimacy in their own country\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have been terrible in economic progress, peace and stability,\u201d he added, describing the ongoing situation in Mali as \u201cvery dire\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThese attacks will be another negative aspect to their claims that they can control Mali,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mali has been rattled by coordinated attacks carried out by several unidentified \u2060armed groups beginning on Saturday, escalating the political and security crisis in the country, which has been under military rule for most of the past 14 years. On Sunday, a military source told Al Jazeera that Mali\u2019s Defence Minister Sadio Camara had been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
What happened?<\/h2>\n
Who is behind Saturday\u2019s attack?<\/h2>\n
What role did Russian mercenaries play during the attacks?<\/h2>\n
What does all this mean for Mali\u2019s and the Sahel\u2019s security?<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"