Mali rattled by ongoing armed attacks: What to know | Politics News

Mali was driven through coordinated attacks carried out by various unidentified armed groups starting on Saturday, escalating the political and security crisis in the country, which has been under military rule for most of the past 14 years.

On Sunday, a military source told Al Jazeera that Mali’s Defense Minister Sadio Camara has died amid coordinated attacks on military sites across the country, including the capital, Bamako. His residence in Kati was attacked on Saturday.

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“The General Staff of the Armed Forces informs the public that unidentified armed terrorist groups targeted certain locations and barracks in the capital and the interior early this morning, April 25, 2026. Fighting continues,” Mali’s army said in a statement on Saturday.

Al-Qaeda-linked group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) claimed responsibility for attacks in Kati, near the capital, as well as Bamako airport and other locations further north, including Mopti, Sevare and Gao. Tuareg rebels have also claimed participation in the latest attacks.

Current military ruler Assimi Goita came to power in a 2021 coup on a promise to increase security amid the growing influence of armed groups in one of the world’s most impoverished nations. Goita has yet to make a public statement.

So what is the latest situation in the country and are the armed attacks limited?

Here’s what we know:

What happened?

On Saturday morning, Mali’s army said unidentified “terrorist” groups attacked several military positions in Bamako and the country’s interior.

Two loud explosions and sustained gunfire were heard shortly before 06:00 (06:00 GMT) near Mali’s main military base, Kati, just north of the capital. Soldiers were deployed to block roads, witnesses said.

There was similar unrest around the same time in the central town of Sevare, and Kidal and Gao in the north.

Gunfire could be heard near a military camp near Bamako airport, where Russian mercenary forces are based, a resident told the Reuters news agency.

Heavy gunfire was also reported in Kati, where Goita also has his residence, witnesses told the AFP news agency.

AFP reported that Kati residents uploaded images on social media showing their homes destroyed. “We’re full of shit in Kati,” said one resident.

The army said in a statement that it killed several hundred attackers and repelled the assault, which hit several sites in or near Bamako. It is unclear how many attackers were killed.

It said the situation was under control, adding that a large-scale livestock operation was also underway in Bamako, the nearby barracks town of Kati and elsewhere in the gold-producing country.

Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, speaking from Dakar, Senegal on Saturday, said the scale and coordination of the attack appeared to be unprecedented.

He said, despite the situation coming under control, “there is an unprecedented level of panic in the military ranks.”

The African Union, the Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the United States’ Bureau of African Affairs condemned the attacks.

Indications that different armed groups have launched a coordinated attack in Mali indicate a “very dangerous development”, according to Ulf Laessing, Sahel analyst at the German think tank Konrad Adenauer Stiftung.

He told Al Jazeera on Saturday that since the crisis began in 2012, security has been “degrading” every year, and the government has little control over large parts of the country.

Mali’s democratically elected President Amadou Toumani Toure was ousted in a military-led coup in May 2012. His government was accused of failing to deal with a Tuareg-led rebellion in the north.

Since then, the country has experienced a severe security and political crisis, armed rebellions and two military coups.

Mali is “a vast area, twice the size of France. Most people live in the south, the north is desert and mountains… it is impossible to control it, not even the French could do it, let alone the Russians,” Laessing said.

“There is no military solution,” and armed groups are “entrenched” in the countryside.

“The only good news is that so far they (armed groups) have not been able to control … bigger cities,” he added.

Who is behind Saturday’s attack?

The JNIM and Tuareg rebels claimed responsibility for the attacks.

In a statement published by SITE ‌Intelligence Group, JNIM claimed attacks in Kati, Bamako and in places further north, including Mopti, Sevare and Gao.

JNIM is the Sahel affiliate of al-Qaeda and the most active armed group in the region, according to conflict monitor ACLED. Since September, JNIM fighters have been attacking fuel tankers, bringing Bamako to a standstill in October 2025.

It has also imposed an economic and fuel blockade by closing major highways used by tankers transporting fuel from neighboring Senegal and Ivory Coast to the landlocked Sahel country.

Most of Bamako’s residents were unable to buy fuel for cars or motorbikes for weeks as supplies dried up, bringing the usually bustling capital to a standstill.

Despite several months of calm, Bamako residents faced a diesel shortage in March, with fuel prioritized for use in the energy sector.

On Saturday, the JNIM said the city of Kidal had been “captured” in an operation coordinated with the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg-dominated rebel group.

Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesperson for FLA, said on social media that the group took control of several posts in Kidal and Gao. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the claim.

Videos posted online and verified by Al Jazeera show armed men entering the National Youth Camp of Kidal on Saturday.

Al Jazeera’s Haque noted that the FLA appears to be gaining ground in the north of the country.

“There is video footage circulating on social media showing some of these fighters entering the residence of the governor of Kidal,” he said.

“Kidal is not the biggest town in the north but it is high in symbolism because whoever owns the town of Kidal controls the north,” he added.

Ibrahim Yahaya Ibrahim, deputy director for the Sahel at the International Crisis Group, says Malian authorities appear to have been caught off guard by the latest wave of attacks.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Dakar on Saturday, Ibrahim said the offensive fits into a broader pattern of escalating violence.

“Although it is difficult to say that this is completely a surprise, I think this is just another dramatic episode in a series of spectacular attacks that we have seen in recent years by JNIM attacking the government,” he said.

What role did Russian mercenaries play during the attacks?

Witnesses told Al Jazeera’s Haque Russian mercenaries They have been involved in fighting in Bamako, around the airport, where they have one of their headquarters.

“But because there was so much pressure on the Russia-Ukraine front, some of these Russian mercenaries are being pulled out of Mali, which is now affecting the security situation in Mali,” Haque said.

Al Jazeera’s Haque said that “the Russian mercenaries seem to have surrendered the town of Kidal or at least the military camp where they were with the Malian forces.”

“The Tuareg fighters asked them to surrender weapons. It is unclear whether they did or not, but what is clear is that the Russians are walking out of the town of Kidal,” he said, adding that “Russian mercenaries not fighting armed fighters is something significant.”

In June last year, Russia’s Wagner Group said it would withdraw from Mali after more than three and a half years on the ground. The paramilitary force said it had completed its mission against armed groups in the country.

But Wagner’s withdrawal from Mali did not mean the departure of Russian fighters. Russian mercenaries remained under the banner of the Africa Corps, a separate Kremlin-backed paramilitary group created after Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin led a failed mutiny against the Russian military in June 2023.

In addition to Mali, Africa Corps is also active in other African countries, including Equatorial Guinea and the Central African Republic.

What does all this mean for Mali and the Sahel’s security?

Since gaining independence in 1960, the West African country has experienced alternating cycles of political stability and instability, marked by rebellions, financial woes and military coups.

In 2012, ethnic Tuareg separatists, allied with fighters from an al-Qaeda offshoot, launched a rebellion that took control of the country’s north.

But fighters from the Ansar Dine armed group quickly pushed out the Tuareg rebels and captured key northern cities, prompting French military intervention in early 2013 at the request of the government. Ansar Dine and several other groups later merged to form the JNIM.

In September 2013, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was elected president. His fragile democratic rule ended in 2020. Under his government, the United Nations brokered a peace deal between the government and northern Tuareg groups that fought for an independent Azawad in 2015.

President Keita was ousted in a military coup in August 2020 after months of mass protests over severe economic losses in the country and the advance of armed groups in the north. In September of that year, Bah Ndaw, a retired colonel, was sworn in as interim president, with Goita as vice president, to lead a transitional government.

In May 2021, Goita, the leader of the previous year’s coup and vice president of the interim government, seized power in a second coup. Mali is currently run by Goita’s military government. Initially, the military government promised to return to civilian rule in March 2024, but it did not keep the promise.

Goita invited Russian mercenaries to support the military administration in its fight against armed groups in December 2021 after asking French troops to leave the country. This created a security vacuum. In January 2024, Mali’s rulers also ended the 2015 peace deal with Tuareg rebels, accusing them of not honoring the agreement. This once again led to a collapse in the country’s security situation.

In September 2025, the JNIM began a fuel import blockade, paralyzing life in Bamako.

Mali, along with Niger and Burkina Faso, formally seceded from the West African regional bloc ECOWAS last year to form the Alliance of Sahelian States (AES).

However, earlier this week Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop attended a security forum in Senegal where he said the withdrawal was “final”, but added that the AES could maintain a constructive dialogue with ECOWAS on freedom of movement and the preservation of a common market.

“Even for the Malian minister to come to this conference indicates that they are afraid of themselves and they need to open up,” Adama Gaye, a political commentator on the Sahel and West Africa, told Al Jazeera. “This is also an indication that they want to reach out to ECOWAS.”

Gaye added that the Goita-led military government “cannot have legitimacy in their own country.”

“They have been terrible in economic progress, peace and stability,” he added, describing the ongoing situation in Mali as “very dire.”

“These attacks will be another negative aspect of their claims that they can control Mali,” he said.