Mali army, Russian paramilitary allies retake northern town

Mali's army has regained control of the key northern town of Anefis after fighting against rebel militants for nearly a week, separatists and the military said Friday.

Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists and Tuareg separatists launched coordinated attacks in Mali last Saturday, claiming control of the northern town but failing to capture a military camp there.

Paramilitaries from Russia's Africa Corps and a contingent of Malian soldiers remained entrenched in the camp, which they continued to defend.

Reinforcements arrived Thursday evening and retook Anefis, which is located about 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the rebel-controlled city of Kidal.

"I can tell you that Malian troops and the Africa Corps partners broke through the obstacles and arrived in Anefis to reinforce our troops who were on the ground", a Mali military source told AFP.

A convoy of dozens of vehicles, backed by air support, set out from the major city of Gao, reaching Anefis despite rebel attacks along the way.

"Air-ground operations made it possible to secure the route and the convoy's entry into the town, despite several skirmishes and ambushes carried out by armed terrorist groups," Mali's armed forces said in a statement, claiming to have neutralised "nearly a hundred" fighters.

Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, a spokesman for the FLA, an ethnic-Tuareg separatist movement, told AFP his group had "decided to leave Anefis for strategic reasons and to avoid civilian casualties".

In late April, Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group JNIM and the FLA launched a major offensive in which they captured Kidal, a strategic northern town, and killed the troubled west African country's defence minister.

Since the coups in 2020 and 2021, Mali has been led by the military.

Its junta leaders had promised to restore calm in the vast nation, which has been grappling with a security crisis since 2012, but so far have mostly failed to deliver.