Bamako – Mali’s army chief said around 30 soldiers had been killed in recent fighting to retake the key northern town of Anefis from Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists and their Tuareg separatist allies.
Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group JNIM and the FLA, an ethnic-Tuareg separatist movement, seized the town on July 4 in their latest series of coordinated attacks in the troubled west African country.
The insurgents however failed to capture a military camp in the town, where a group of army soldiers and paramilitary fighters from Russia’s Africa Corps dug in until reinforcements arrived.
The army said Friday it had retaken Anefis after nearly a week of fighting.
“I regret the loss of around 30 people, 30 fallen martyrs. We also have around 60 wounded, including serious cases,” the army chief, General Jean Elysee Dao, said on Malian state TV.
The Tuareg separatists said in a statement Saturday they had dealt the army and Russian paramilitaries “the heaviest material and human losses in their history in the region” during the battle, and had in turn lost “some of (our) best” fighters.
The Malian military said it had taken out “around 100” insurgents.
Anefis is located about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the strategic city of Kidal, which the rebels seized in a previous assault in April in which they also killed Malian defence minister Sadio Camara.
Mali has been ruled by a military government since a pair of coups in 2020 and 2021.
The junta has struggled to deliver on its promise to restore security after years of jihadist and separatist unrest.
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Source: AFP
