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At least 14 Malian soldiers were killed and 11 wounded on Tuesday in clashes with jihadists in the heart of the country, the army said Thursday.
Earlier reports, told by army and gendarmerie officers on condition of anonymity, said at least 12 people were killed in these battles after several attacks on the army with homemade bombs between Mopti and Segou. Malian soldiers were reported to have been killed the day before.
“On the side of the enemy,” the Malian army claims to have neutralized “31 terrorists” in a statement sent to AFP.
Jihadists from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for Support for Islam and Muslims (GSIM, JNIM in Arabic) said they had a “double ambush targeting Malian soldiers and Wagner Group mercenaries in the Mopti region.” claimed responsibility. , in a press release certified by SITE, an American NGO that specializes in following up on radical groups, AFP consulted Thursday.
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The first attack was carried out “with mines” on the road between Tenenkou and Makina, during which “an unknown number of Malian soldiers and Wagner mercenaries were killed and wounded”.
According to the JNIM organization, a second attack “with three explosive devices” between Kumara and Makina “killed five Wagner mercenaries and seven Malian soldiers” and injured dozens. “.
Some countries have accused the military government in power in Mali of relying on Wagner, a private paramilitary group said to be close to the Kremlin, an accusation Bamako denies. .
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Since 2012, Mali has suffered from widespread jihadist movements and a deep multi-faceted political, economic and humanitarian crisis. The heart of the country is one of the hotbeds of violence, extending south into neighboring countries Burkina Faso and Niger.
The colonels, who came to power through a rebellion in 2020 and reinforced by a second coup in 2021, have turned against their former French allies and their partners and turned to Russia militarily and politically. rice field.
The military government will launch operations focused on central Mali at the end of 2021. She claims to have hunted down fugitive jihadists and defenses across the country.
However, in a report submitted to the Security Council by the UN Secretary-General on Tuesday, the UN said that from June to December 2022, the security situation would worsen in the heart of the Sahel, particularly in Burkina Faso and Mali. I wrote that I continued “.
“In Mali, after the withdrawal of international forces, armed groups advanced into the eastern part of the country and seized large swaths of the border with Niger,” the report stresses.
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