San Francisco Frontiers - Tuareg rebels in control of key Mali town

Two days of fierce fighting between the army and jihadists allied with the Tuaregs have raised questions about the future of the military junta running the west African country, which has seen more than a decade of violence.

Defence Minister Sadio Camara has been killed, while military ruler General Assimi Goita, who led the coup in 2020 that brought the junta to power, has not been seen or spoken publicly since fighting began at the weekend.

Several strategic towns and areas around the capital, Bamako, were targeted in a dawn offensive on Saturday by Tuareg rebels of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and the Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).

Analysts said the latest attacks were the most serious challenge to the Malian state since a March 2012 offensive that was repelled by forces from former colonial ruler France, who have since left the vast Sahel country.

"The enemy's goal was to take power by dismantling the institutions of the state," Prime Minister Abdoulaye Maiga told a press conference aired by public broadcaster ORTM.

He said lessons would be learnt so security could be improved and urged the public not to panic.

Neither the jihadists nor the Tuareg separatists have said they want to seize power.

They have, instead, seized Kidal, marking a major blow to Mali's military junta.

"It's the jihadists and the FLA who are in Kidal," a source close to the governor told AFP on Monday. "We have left Kidal. We are no longer there."

Residents confirmed to AFP having seen Malian soldiers and their Russian mercenary backers leaving the town.

- Military presence -

At the weekend the FLA, a Tuareg separatist group claiming the territory of Azawad in northern Mali, said that it had "total" control of Kidal.

Kidal, a pro-independence stronghold, was controlled by rebel groups for years before being retaken in November 2023 in an army offensive, supported by the Russian mercenary Wagner Group.

The army chief of staff told ORTM on Sunday that the military now planned a "redeployment" to Anefis, 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Kidal.

There was a fragile calm on Monday in Bamako and Kati, a garrison town and junta stronghold about 15 kilometres further north.

Schools and offices were open in Bamako and checkpoints around the airport and military camps near the capital and Kati had been lifted.

Heavily armed soldiers were still present and the only aircraft entering or leaving the airport were military planes.

"We conducted sweep operations throughout the night, which allowed us to reduce the checkpoints," an officer in Senou, the district outside Bamako where the airport is located, told AFP.

"Now we are counting on the public to report any suspicious individuals in the neighbourhoods," he said.

- Mali 'in danger' -

The military government has declared two days of national mourning for Camara, the 47-year-old defence minister and a key figure in the junta.

He died on Saturday in a car bomb attack on his home in Kati, along with his second wife and two of his grandchildren, his family and an official said.

The general died of his wounds in hospital, the government said.

A Malian security source told AFP that junta leader Goita was in a safe place.

After seizing power, Goita had pledged to combat the jihadists and initially promised a return to civilian rule in Mali, which has gold and other valuable minerals.

The weekend attacks are the most serious challenge to his leadership so far.

It also represents the country's gravest security crisis since 2012, when Tuareg separatists seized control of Kidal, as well as the towns of Gao and Timbuktu, before being pushed out after their jihadist former allies turned on them.

In the only toll given for the attacks so far, the junta said on Saturday that 16 civilians and soldiers had been wounded and there had been "limited" material damage.

It has not updated that figure and, given the intensity of the fighting, there are fears the toll could be higher.

The military said it had killed more than 200 "terrorists across all the areas attacked".

But the opposition Coalition of Forces for the Republic said Mali was "in danger".

The junta had "promised Malians security, stability and the return of the state" but after the weekend offensive, nobody could seriously claim the country was either pacified or secure, it said.

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O.Anderson--SFF