Africa-Press. Clashes resumed on Sunday between fighters and the Malian army in the city of Kati, the stronghold of the ruling military council, near the capital Bamako, while Defense Minister General Sadio Camara was killed in an attack on his home near Bamako.
Sources told Al Jazeera and AFP that Mali’s defence minister was killed in coordinated attacks on military sites across the country, a day after his home in the city of Katie was attacked.
A member of Kamara’s family was quoted by AFP as saying: “In the Katie attack, Minister Camara was killed along with his second wife and two young children.”
A government source said: “We have lost someone very dear, the Minister of Defense, he has fallen in the arena of honor.”
Katie, which includes a military garrison, was among the areas attacked on Saturday by militants from the al-Qaeda-affiliated group Nusra al-Islam and Muslims, which is allied with the Tuareg rebels from the Azawad Liberation Front.
A resident of the city told AFP: “The fighting resumed this morning, almost everywhere. Jihadists near the hill overlooking Katie. Another resident said: “The flight also entered the battle.”
On Sunday, the Tuareg rebels announced an “agreement” to withdraw Russian soldiers belonging to the African Legion from the northern Malian city of Kidal, which they said they had come in full control.
“An agreement has been reached that allows the army and its allies in the Africa Corps to leave Camp 2, where they have been holed up since yesterday,” a rebel leader told AFP, adding that the city of Kidal was under their control “in full”.
A resident of Kidal said: “We saw a military convoy leaving, but we don’t know the details of the situation. The fighters of the armed movements are now deployed in the streets.”
On the other hand, the Malian government said in a statement on Saturday evening that the attacks caused the injury of 16 civilians and military personnel and “limited material damage,” adding that “the situation is completely under control in all areas under attack.”
But Mohammed Ramadan, a spokesman for the Azawad Liberation Front, told AFP: “The fighting resumed in Kidal this morning. We are trying to get the last Russian fighters who took refuge in the camp.”
Unprecedented attacks
The Azawad Liberation Front said in a statement on Saturday evening that “only a small pocket of resistance is left, consisting of Russian mercenaries from the African Corps and a few Malian soldiers holed up” in an old camp.
The front, which seeks to establish a state in the northern Mali region of Azawad, confirmed on Saturday that it was in control of Kidal after battles in the city, one of the cities targeted by coordinated attacks by the Tuareg rebels and the al-Qaeda-linked group Nusra al-Islam and Muslims.
Mali has been facing a mutiny in the Tuareg and militant groups for more than a decade, but the attacks, which began on Saturday, have been unprecedented since a military council seized power in a 2020 coup.
Fighting has erupted since dawn on Saturday and has continued intensively during the day on the outskirts of Bamako and in several cities across Mali, including Kidal, Gao and Sévari.
The group, which has been fighting for years against the army, spoke of Nasr, describing it as the result of serious work and coordination with its “partners” and “with the active participation of our brothers in the Azawad Liberation Front.”
The group claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attacks on “the headquarters of Malian President Assimi Guetta,” “the headquarters of Malian Defense Minister Sadio Camara,” “Modibo Keita Airport in the capital,” and “military positions in the city of Katie” adjacent to Bamako.
In January 2024, Mali’s ruling military junta announced the termination of the 2015 peace deal signed in Algeria with northern separatist groups “with immediate effect.”
In September 2024, the group “Nusra al-Islam and Muslims” claimed responsibility for a double attack targeting the military airport in Bamako and the gendarmerie school, killing more than 70 people and wounding 200, according to security sources.
