Rebel checkpoints reported around Mali’s capital, northern town seized

The latest developments come days after a series of attacks by JNIM and Tuareg separatists from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) resulted in the killing of the country’s defence minister, Sadio Camara.

Videos shared on social media by local accounts on Friday show armed fighters inside the Amachach base in Tessalit, with several military vehicles seen driving around.

Media outlets close to the Azawad armed movement, which seeks the independence of northern Mali, said the scenes show fighters in control of the base following the withdrawal of elements of the army and Russia’s African Corps, according to their description.

Russia is the principal foreign backer of Mali’s military-run government.

JNIM said on Thursday that it had captured the base of Hombori in central Mali and taken over two checkpoints near Bamako, after earlier threatening to completely besiege the city.

Russia’s African Corps said in a statement that the JNIM statement about the abandonment of the Hombori base was “not true”.

It said that its helicopters delivered ammunition and other items to Malian military personnel at a base in Hombori on Thursday, “after which soldiers of the Malian Armed Forces injured in battles with terrorists were evacuated”.

It noted that JNIM and AFL “continue to regroup, conduct reconnaissance of the bases of the units of the African Corps of the Russian Armed Forces and the Malian Army, and propaganda work is actively underway aimed at reducing the morale of the Malian Army”.

Al Jazeera’s Nicolas Haque, reporting from Dakar in Senegal, reports that the absence of a response from the Malian military to the rebel advances is surprising, and that four major military camps in the north of the country are now in the hands of armed groups.

“That’s a big development,” Haque said. “It seems that Malian forces are not even putting up a fight up north.”

Mali’s military leaders seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, with a brief period of civilian rule in between. Official authorities are yet to issue a statement on the latest reports at the time of writing.