Gunmen stage simultaneous attacks across Mali, army says

Gunmen have attacked Mali’s capital, Bamako and several locations across the country, the army says, in an apparently coordinated ⁠assault involving multiple groups.

The army on Saturday morning said it was fighting “terrorist groups” that had attacked army barracks in Bamako and other areas in the military-ruled nation.

Two loud explosions and sustained gunfire were heard shortly before 6am (06:00 GMT) near Mali’s main military base, Kati, outside Bamako, the home of military ruler General Assimi Goita.

Residents in Kati said the house of Defence Minister General Sadio Camara was targeted. Two witnesses quoted by the Reuters news agency said Camara’s house was hit and destroyed. Camara’s entourage said he was not present at the time and was “safe”, according to the news agency AFP.

An Associated Press journalist in Bamako reported the use of heavy weaponry and automatic rifle gunfire near Bamako’s Modibo Keita International Airport, located about 15km (nine miles) from the city centre. A helicopter patrolled nearby neighbourhoods.

There was similar unrest at about the same time in the central town of Sevare, the town of Kidal and the city of Gao in northern Mali.

A spokesperson for the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) has said its forces had taken control of Kidal and some areas in Gao. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the claim.

Mali’s army said shortly after 11am (11:00 GMT) that the situation was under control but “sweeping operations” were ongoing.

Multiple insurgencies

Mali’s military government, led by Assimi Goita, took power after coups in 2020 and 2021, pledging to restore security, but has struggled to do so.

The country is battling rebellions by the West African affiliates of al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS), as well as the Tuareg-led rebellion in the north.

Four security sources told Reuters that al-Qaeda affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) was involved in the attacks and appeared to have coordinated with the FLA.

Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, who has extensively reported from Mali, said the scale and coordination of the attacks “appear to be unprecedented”.

“According to military sources, the fighters involved in this coordinated attack are targeting military armed compounds,” he said, adding that ” there is an “unprecedented level of panic” in the military ranks.

Ulf Laessing, Sahel analyst at the German think tank, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, told Al Jazeera that the coordinated attack by different armed groups signalled “a very dangerous development”.

Over a decade of unrest

Mali, rich in gold and other valuable minerals, has been dealing with more than a decade of armed unrest.

Following two military coups in 2020 and 2021, Bamako cut ties with its former colonial ruler, France, and expelled French forces and United Nations peacekeeping missions.

In July last year, military authorities granted coup leader Goita a five-year presidential mandate, which can be renewed “as many times as necessary” without an election.

A month before that, Russia’s Wagner Group, which had been aiding Malian forces against armed groups since 2021, said it would complete its mission.

It has now become the Africa Corps, an organisation under the direct control of the Russian Ministry of Defence.

Haque said Al Jazeera had learned from witnesses that Russian mercenaries were “fighting in Bamako, around the airport, where they have one of their headquarters”.

“But because there’s 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,” he added.

Alongside Burkina Faso and Niger – which are also ruled by military governments backed by Russian mercenaries – Mali formed the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) in 2023.

The trio, which have formally split from West African regional bloc ECOWAS, have formed a joint military battalion aimed at fighting groups across the Sahel.