Tuareg rebels in Mali has eliminated and wounded dozens of soldiers and mercenaries of the Russian private military company “Wagner”. The militia also shot down an Mi-24, and an Mi-8 helicopter with a Russian crew.
The Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD) rebel movement said its fighters seized armored vehicles, trucks and tanks during fighting in the border town of Tinzahuaten.
The rebel group also said it destroyed two helicopters in the town of Kidal, hundreds of kilometers away with large-caliber machine guns.
Mali’s army reported that two of its soldiers were killed and 10 wounded in the fighting. However, about 20 militants were eliminated. In addition, according to the military, one of the army helicopters crashed during the mission in the city of Kidal, and there were no casualties.
A video from after the fighting was published on the social media by the rebels.
Tuareg Rebels
The Tuareg are an ethnic group that inhabits the Sahara region, in particular part of northern Mali. Many of them feel marginalized by the country’s government. The separatist group launched an insurgency against the Malian junta government in 2012, but was later captured by Islamist groups.
In 2015, the group signed a peace agreement with the Malian government. However, at the end of 2022, the CSP-PSD withdrew from the negotiations.
The area of northern Mali on the border with Algeria has been the scene of intense fighting for days. This week the Bamako army announced that it had taken control of the city of Inafarak, just ten kilometers from the border.
A statement from the Malian Armed Forces (Fama) defines the city as a “very important commercial crossroads”, the subject of “trafficking” and used by the “mafia coalition of armed groups, perpetrators of abuse and racketeering against peaceful populations”, with reference to the jihadists of the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (Jnim), affiliated to al Qaeda, and the Tuareg rebels of the CSP-Dpa coalition, signatories of the 2015 peace agreement later broken by Bamako.
Russians, Wagner, and African Legion in Mali
Last November the Malian army and its Russian allies led by the Wagner group had repelled the CSP rebels from their stronghold of Kidal. Their arrival, eight months later, in Inafarak – located more than 120 kilometers north of Tessalit, on the border with Algeria – constituted a certain show of strength and a serious blow for the rebels, whose fighters have largely part retreated towards the Algerian border. The defeat at Tinzawaten now seems to mark a turnaround in the conflict.
A significant contingent of Wagner PMC mercenaries is present in at least five African countries: Sudan, CAR, Libya, Mali, Mozambique. In addition, at one or another level of influence and presence, the “Wagners” operated in the territory of seven more African countries: Cameroon, Madagascar, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya.
The military leaders that took power in a 2020 coup have made it a priority to retake all of the country from separatist and Jihadists forces. Mali, is battling a years-long Islamist insurgency. It has said Russian forces there are not Wagner mercenaries but trainers helping local troops with equipment bought from Russia.
This January, Russia launched a new military force in Africa, dubbed the ‘African Legion’, which will replace the controversial Wagner group of mercenaries.
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Nigér recently announced their withdrawal from the G5 Sahel force, a regional anti-jihadist coalition that was set up in 2014 with the support of France, and forming a new alliance of Sahel states that aims to enhance their security and development.
Mali then demanded that the United Nations Security Council to withdraw the MINUSMA peacekeeping mission from the country without delay. Subsequently, MINUSMA has begun its exit from the country in accordance with the request.
Meanwhile, Russia is expanding its presence in Mali, a base, which was reportedly used by Wagner operatives as a training and logistics hub, has seen a significant increase in activity since July, when only a handful of vehicles were present.
The expansion suggests that Russia remains committed to the development of its presence in Mali and the wider region, despite the death of Wagner’s founder, Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, in August 2023.
In June last year, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that Wagner members would continue their operations in Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR) as instructors. “This work, of course, will continue,” he said in an interview with the RT outlet.
Moscow has supplied several aircraft to the Mali, as the efforts to strengthen it’s military capacity continues in the face of mass exodus of foreign troops in the Sahelian country.
Russia provided Mil Mi-17s, Mil Mi-35Ms, Mi-24Ps hind helicopters, Czech-designed L-39C Albatross trainer aircraft, and Sukhoi Su-25 Frogfoot ground attack aircraft.
Last year, the Malian Air force Mi-24D helicopter (serial TZ-01H) crashed in a residential neighborhood of Bamako, Mali’s capital, after returning from what the Malian army stated was an “operational mission.”
The Malian Air Force has been conducting numerous operations against jihadist groups in the Sahel region over the past few years. The Malian Air Force operates around 10 Mi-24/35s helicopters in various variants including the Mi-24D, Mi-24P, and the newer Mi-35M models.
This July, due to the rising insecurity in the region, Defense chiefs of West Africa on Thursday, June 27 proposed a plan to deploy a 5,000-strong “standby force” to fight the region’s worsening security crises.