Jihadist fighters have launched a sequence of simultaneous assaults on navy posts throughout quite a few cities in Mali – the third main assault on the military over the past month.
Mali’s military stated it repelled Tuesday morning’s assaults, allegedly “neutralising” greater than 80 militants, with out saying if there have been every other casualties.
Nonetheless, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-linked group who stated it was behind the assaults, stated it had taken management of three military barracks.
For greater than a decade Mali has been wracked by a lethal Islamist insurgency, in addition to assaults from separatist actions.
In a press release broadcast on nationwide TV, military spokesperson Souleymane Dembele stated: “The enemy suffered vital losses in each location the place they engaged with the safety and defence forces.”
Col Dembele added that the military recovered weapons, automobiles and bikes from the assailants.
Earlier, the armed forces stated that the assaults had occurred throughout seven cities and cities, together with Binoli, Kayes and Sandere, close to the border with Senegal. There have been additionally assaults additional north, close to Mali’s frontier with Mauritania.
A resident of Kayes advised the BBC that gunshots could possibly be heard “all over the place” through the assault.
“The police station was broken, in addition to the governor’s home,” he stated, including that casualty figures have been nonetheless unclear.
JNIM known as its assault “co-ordinated and top quality” in a press release posted on social media. They didn’t element any casualties.
The group has additionally stated it carried out two different vital latest assaults.
On 2 June, militants focused each a military camp and airport within the historical, northern metropolis of Timbuktu.
Only a day earlier than, a raid killed at the least 30 troopers within the centre of the nation.
The assaults, the most recent signal of rising insecurity in Mali and the broader Sahel area, got here after the USA Africa Command warned about rising efforts by numerous completely different Islamist militant teams which function within the Sahel to achieve entry to West Africa’s shoreline.
Throughout a press convention in Might, the commander of United States Africa Command (Africom), Gen Michael Langley, described latest assaults in Nigeria, the broader Sahel, and the Lake Chad Basin as deeply troubling.
He warned that the teams’ entry to the coast would considerably enhance their capability for smuggling and arms trafficking.
