Jihadists launch fresh attacks

Jihadists and their separatist ​Tuareg-led allies have hit northern Mali, where government troops and Russian paramilitary forces are based, with fresh co-ordinated attacks –  striking several towns and a prison, according to the army, residents and security sources, reports RFI. Attacks were reported in Gao, Anefis, Aguelhok and Sevare, as well as a prison in Kenieroba. The latest fighting came more than two months after the same rebel groups staged attacks against the military-led government, hitting the airport in the capital ​Bamako, killing the Defence Minister ‌and seizing a string of army bases in the north. Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesperson for the FLA – an ethnic Tuareg separatist movement – told France's AFP that ‘several positions have fallen, but fighting (was) still underway inside the city’ of Anefis in the northeastern Kidal region. Government and Russian troops deployed in Anefis ​in the wake of the April attacks ​in which the FLA and the ​regional al-Qaeda affiliate seized control of Kidal town in a major blow to the ruling military junta. The FLA and  JNIM, an al-Qadea affiliate, have allied against Mali’s army and its Russian partners from Africa Corps, a Kremlin-controlled Russian paramilitary force that remained in Mali after the Wagner Group announced its withdrawal from the country in June 2025.