Movements in armored vehicles and military helicopters in Ménaka and Gao still under the protection of the Barkhane force, in February 2021. – ERIC DESSONS / JDD / SIPA
The Malian army said on Tuesday that it had eliminated 26 jihadists in the center of the country during an operation carried out jointly with the French forces of the anti-jihadist operation Barkhane.
According to a statement from the Malian Chief of Staff, a reconnaissance operation made it possible to locate a “terrorist group” responsible for an “ambush” on Saturday in the Niono sector (center). The army did not give details of this ambush, nor an assessment.
Human and material losses “on the enemy side”
Monday morning, the group “responsible for this attack” was the “target of a combined action Malian Armed Forces-Barkhane in the Alatona sector”, some 75 km from the Mauritanian border, according to the general staff. “After sweeping the area”, the provisional toll is “26 terrorists neutralized, two pick-ups destroyed, one pick-up recovered and a large quantity of weapons seized on the enemy side”, continues the staff, specifying n ” have recorded “no loss or injury on the friend’s side”.
Mali has been plagued since 2012 by a jihadist surge from the north, which plunged the country into a security crisis and spread to the center of the country. The violence has also spread to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. Violence, jihadists, intercommunity or others have caused thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of displaced people, despite the intervention of UN, French and African forces.