The Japan Times - Tuareg rebels vow Mali junta 'will fall', north will be captured

Over the weekend jihadists and the Tuareg separatists launched the largest assault on the country in nearly 15 years, attacking the military junta and its Russian paramilitary backers.

Acknowledging the situation was "of extreme gravity", junta chief Assimi Goita, who had not been seen for three days, said in a speech on TV late Tuesday that the situation was "under control".

But a spokesman for the Tuareg separatist coalition Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) told AFP during a visit to Paris on Wednesday that "the regime will fall, sooner or later".

The clashes have pitted the army not just against the FLA but also its allies within the Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).

Their coordinated dawn offensive on Saturday against strategic junta positions, including areas around the capital, Bamako, killed at least 23 people, with the toll expected to rise.

The two days of fierce fighting also killed Defence Minister Sadio Camara -- seen as the mastermind behind the junta's pivot to Russia. His funeral is planned for Thursday.

The separatists and jihadists were able to capture the key northern town of Kidal and also targeted Gao in the mostly desert north along with Mopti and Sevare in the centre.

Gao is the army's second-largest military stronghold after Kati, a garrison town near Bamako which is home to several senior junta officials and was targeted in the weekend attacks.

FLA spokesman Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane told AFP on Wednesday that the rebels intend to take control of Gao, Timbuktu and Menaka following their success in Kidal.

In the Gao region, the Malian army has already abandoned some of its positions, local sources told AFP.

- Russian withdrawal -

Since 2012, the west African nation has faced a profound security crisis fuelled in particular by violence from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as local criminal gangs and pro-independence groups.

The latest assaults raise questions about the junta's ability to tackle the security crisis, despite its insistence that its strategy, foreign partnerships and increased military efforts have stemmed the jihadist threat.

Mali's junta government, like its military counterparts in neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso, have severed ties with former colonial ruler France and several Western countries, moving closer politically and militarily to Russia.

Russia's mercenary Wagner Group, which had been fighting with Malian forces against jihadists since 2021, ended their involvement in June 2025. It has since become the Africa Corps, an organisation under the direct control of the Russian defence ministry.

Although JNIM and FLA have different goals, according to experts, they are united against a common enemy -- the military junta that has ruled since 2020 and the Russian paramilitary backers.

FLA spokesman Ramadane additionally told AFP Wednesday that his group's "objective is for Russia to withdraw permanently from Azawad and beyond, from all of Mali".

The FLA is made up of mainly Tuareg groups who want independence for Azawad, a territory in northern Mali.

"We have no particular problem with Russia, nor with any other country. Our problem is with the regime that governs Bamako", Ramadane said.

- Fairweather friends -

A historically nomadic people, Tuaregs, who are spread across Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso, have waged an armed struggle for decades against marginalisation, with action centred in particular around the key city of Kidal.

The most recent attacks are reminiscent of a crisis that rocked Mali in 2012, when Tuareg rebels joined forces with jihadists to capture strategic hubs in the vast, remote north.

That offensive was repelled by forces from France, which has since left the Sahel country.

The alliance between the jihadists and Tuareg rebels eventually unravelled when they turned on each other and the jihadists drove the Tuareg separatists out.

The latest attacks are the result of a new alliance forged a year ago.

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M.Ito--JT