Russian mercenaries hired by Mali’s military agreed on Sunday to withdraw from Kidal after two days of clashes with separatist fighters, the latest twist in a fast-moving offensive that spread across several cities and left a trail of dead and injured. The Azawad Liberation Front said it controls Kidal, while fighting also flared in Kati, Gao, Sevare and Mopti.
The separatist claim came as the broader assault hit the Malian state hard. Mali’s Defence Minister Sadio Camara was killed in an attack near Bamako, according to his family and French media, and news agencies said at least three of his family members were also killed. ORTM reported that 16 people were injured in the attacks, including civilians and soldiers, and said several terrorists were killed.
Sunday’s agreement covered Russian elements of the Africa Corps, which the FLA said it was escorting out of the city. Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane said Kidal had “not fallen completely” because “elements of the Malian army and Russian mercenaries” were still present, but the group later said it had reached an arrangement for their secure withdrawal from the fighting. The FLA also said it had taken control of the city.
Kidal matters because it had served as an unofficial headquarters of the separatist movement for more than a decade before Mali’s army, with help from Russian mercenaries, captured it in late 2023. An FLA field commander said the group had been preparing for the offensive for months, and set out a wider ambition: “Our main goal now is to control Gao and then Timbuktu will be easy to fall.”
The attacks on Saturday were part of co-ordinated assaults by armed groups across Mali, and included simultaneous strikes by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, which stage-managed violence in multiple locations at once. Ulf Laessing described it as the “largest co-ordinated jihadist attack on Mali for years,” a measure of how much ground the militants and separatists were trying to cover at the same time.
ORTM said the situation was completely under control in all affected areas, but the events of the weekend told a different story: a state hit in the capital region, a minister reported dead, and a northern city once central to the separatist cause back in dispute. Mali has long been plagued by insurgencies by groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, the Islamic State group and the FLA, and this latest offensive showed how the army is still fighting on several fronts at once.