Mali’s defence minister, Gen. Sadio Camara, was killed during a large-scale assault by jihadi groups and Tuareg separatist rebels that captured multiple towns and military bases, the government said. The attacks, launched Saturday, represented one of the biggest coordinated challenges to Mali’s army and to Russian forces deployed in the country.
The junta-run government confirmed Camara’s death in a post on the defence ministry’s Facebook page and via state television, which relayed comments from spokesman Gen. Issa Ousmane Coulibaly and extended condolences to the family. Authorities said the minister’s residence was struck by a suicide car bomber and other assailants; Camara engaged the attackers, neutralising some, was wounded in heavy fighting and later died in hospital.
Officials said the coordinated strikes hit the capital Bamako and several other cities and towns. While the government reported the attacks appear to have ended, it left open key questions, including who controls the northern city of Kidal after the fighting. Authorities have not released an overall death toll for Saturday’s violence, though they earlier said at least 16 people were wounded.
Separatist forces said they seized Kidal. A spokesperson for the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), Mohamed El Maouloud Ramadan, said Russian Africa Corps troops and Malian forces withdrew from the city after an agreement for a peaceful exit and declared Kidal free. Gen. Oumar Diarra, head of Mali’s armed forces, later told state TV that the army had left Kidal and was repositioning in Anefis, about 100 kilometres to the south. Kidal had been a longtime rebel stronghold before being retaken by government forces and Russian mercenaries in 2023.
The operation marked a notable shift in tactics and alliances. Separatists reportedly coordinated with Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaida-linked group. JNIM said it took part in the attack on Kidal and struck a town outside Bamako and three other cities the same day. The FLA confirmed the joint action and framed it as a partnership with JNIM to defend people against Mali’s military regime, while urging Russia to reconsider its support and accusing Moscow’s presence of worsening civilian suffering.
Wassim Nasr, a regional specialist at the Soufan Center, said the simultaneous nationwide coordination and the groups’ public acknowledgment of cooperation represented a new and worrying development, extending beyond battlefield collaboration into political alignment.
In response to the violence, Bamako authorities imposed a three-day overnight curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Government spokesman Coulibaly said the 16 wounded included both civilians and military personnel and that several militants had been killed, but he did not provide an overall fatality figure.
The Economic Community of West African States condemned the attacks and called for regional unity and coordinated action. Since recent coups in the region, the juntas in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have shifted away from Western partners and toward Russia for security assistance. Despite that alignment, the security situation across the Sahel has deteriorated, with record numbers of militant attacks and accusations that security forces have killed civilians suspected of collaborating with extremists.
Earlier in 2024, an al-Qaida-linked group claimed deadly attacks on Bamako’s airport and a military training camp that killed many people. Ulf Laessing of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation said the separatists and JNIM are unlikely to capture Bamako soon given local opposition, but he added that the recent attacks are a severe blow to Russia’s standing in Mali, noting that deployed mercenaries appeared to have had little intelligence about the strikes and were unable to protect major cities.
