Three days after launching the largest coordinated assault in nearly 15 years against Mali’s ruling military junta, a unified force of Tuareg separatists and al-Qaeda-linked jihadists continues advancing across northern Mali, with Russia’s defense ministry acknowledging Tuesday that the security situation “remains difficult”.
The broad, dawn attacks launched Saturday targeted multiple strategic positions across the West African nation, including military sites near the capital Bamako. In a stunning development that has shaken junta leadership, Defense Minister Sadio Camara — widely regarded as the architect of the junta’s decision to pivot away from Western partners and align with Russia — was killed in fierce fighting against the joint force of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) Tuareg rebels and the jihadist Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).
Junta chief Assimi Goita, who seized power in a 2020 coup on a promise to defeat Islamist insurgency, has not made any public appearance or statement since the attacks began. A Malian security source told Agence France-Presse that Goita is staying out of public view “for security reasons”, while an anonymous elected official in Bamako confirmed that military leadership is currently reassessing its strategy in the wake of the assault. This unexpected absence has fueled widespread uncertainty over the future of the country’s ruling military council.
On Tuesday, Russian defense officials confirmed that fighters from the Moscow-controlled Africa Corps — the paramilitary force deployed to support the Malian junta — have withdrawn from the key northern town of Kidal, which is now fully under the control of the allied armed groups. The ministry also confirmed that rebel fighters launched attempts to seize high-priority targets in Bamako, most notably the presidential palace. Russia, which has been the junta’s primary foreign backer since 2022, stated that regrouping rebel forces remain active across the north, while the Kremlin separately said Moscow is urgently seeking a return to peace and stability for the Sahel nation.
Local sources confirm that Malian government forces have already abandoned multiple outposts in the northern Gao region, the country’s second-largest military stronghold. One anonymous local politician reported that troops withdrew from the border town of Labbezanga near Niger and pulled back to the more defensible position of Ansogo. Late Monday, two large explosions were recorded near Bamako’s international airport by an AFP journalist on the ground, though the source of the blasts has not yet been confirmed. Local residents reported the blasts originated from the military Base 101 located at the airport, with no exchange of small arms fire reported before or after the detonations.
Analysts note that this coordinated offensive marks an unprecedented milestone: two historic foes — Islamist insurgents seeking to establish religious rule and Tuareg separatists fighting for an independent state of Azawad — have set aside their differences to fight a common enemy in the junta and its Russian backers. This new alliance was formalized one year ago, echoing the 2012 crisis that first plunged Mali into ongoing conflict, when the same two groups briefly allied to seize control of northern Mali before turning on one another. At that time, former colonial power France intervened to repel the offensive, but French forces fully withdrew from Mali in 2022 after relations with the junta collapsed.
Some analysts have framed the attacks near Bamako’s centers of power as a strategic diversion to draw junta forces away from Kidal, a longstanding stronghold of Tuareg pro-independence movements. Kidal was retaken by junta forces backed by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group — the predecessor to the current Africa Corps — in a 2023 offensive, but it fell back to rebel control in the recent assault. As of Tuesday, the security situation across central Mali’s Mopti region, which was also targeted in Saturday’s attacks, remains unclear and fluid.
Mali has now faced more than a decade of persistent jihadist violence and overlapping insurgencies, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of people across the country and into neighboring nations including Mauritania, Niger and Burkina Faso. The large-scale offensive has raised serious new questions about the junta’s ability to contain the insurgency, despite repeated claims that its military strategy, partnership with Russia and increased troop deployments have successfully rolled back the jihadist threat.