On Saturday morning, fighters in the West African country of Mali carried out attacks in and around the capital Bamako and in smaller towns of Kidal, Gao and Mopti. The Malian army says “unknown armed terrorist groups” are carrying out the attacks, international news agencies report. The army is “busy eliminating the attackers” and says it has the situation under control.
The attacks are said to be carried out by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), a terrorist group affiliated with Al-Qaeda, and Tuareg rebels, fighters of the nomadic Tuaregs who want a secular free state in northern Mali. Social media posts show JNIM fighters in the attacked cities. In a Facebook message a leader of the Tuareg rebels claimed on Saturday morning that they had captured the town of Kidal and were still fighting in Gao.
It is possible that the rebel leader’s message is correct NRC not independently verified. It is also unclear whether there were any deaths or injuries in the attacks.
‘Coordinated attack’
“It looks like the largest coordinated attack in years,” Mali expert Ulf Leasing told news agencies Reuters and AP. And that is “worrying” because “jihadists and Tuareg rebels already worked together in 2012 when they conquered northern Mali, leading to the security crisis in the region,” says Laessing.
That year, Tuareg rebels, with the help of fundamentalists from the Islamic group Ansar Dine (which later merged with JNIM), captured a number of major northern Malian cities by driving out the national army there. The cooperation was short-lived, the army of former colonizer France intervened to push them back.
Since then, the Tuareg rebels have expanded cooperation with JNIM and the jihadist group has also established itself in neighboring countries Burkina Faso and Niger. In an effort to drive out the jihadists, Mali is now working with Russia instead of France for military aid.
For years, JNIM has been carrying out surprise attacks on the Malian army. She wants to show that the army cannot guarantee security, even in the cities. JNIM wants to create a power vacuum outside the cities, where they impose their own rules, raise taxes and offer companies protection and safe passage for a fee. In this way they build a kind of shadow government that undermines the state.
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