Twin jihadist-claimed attacks kill more than 30 in central Mali

Two attacks in central Mali claimed by Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists have killed more than 30 people, local, security and administrative sources told AFP on Thursday.

The two strikes came less than a fortnight after a large-scale, coordinated offensive by jihadists and separatists on junta positions, which plunged the west African country into a fresh security crisis.

"At least 35 people were killed on Wednesday in near simultaneous attacks" on the villages of Korikori and Gomossogou, a youth official said.

A security and an administrative source both reported more than 30 dead in the assaults, claimed by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM).

WAMAPS, a group of west African journalists specialising in Sahel security, said the provisional toll was more than 50 villagers killed and several still missing.

"Villages have been looted and some properties set on fire," the group added.

The security source said Thursday's assaults were in retaliation for acts committed by the Dan Nan Ambassagou militia, the best-known of the self-defence groups set up by local communities in response to the assaults plaguing central Mali.

"The victims are mostly militiamen. But there are also teenagers and children," the source told AFP.

Made up mainly of traditional ethnic Dogon hunters, Dan Nan Ambassagou has refused an order to disband by the authorities, who accused the militia of a massacre in the central village of Ogossagou that left 160 dead.

The Malian army said on Thursday it had carried out "a targeted operation against terrorist armed groups" in the area and around a dozen fighters were "neutralised."

It did not give further details.

Central Mali violence

The devastating assaults on 25 and 26 April by the JNIM and the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), an ethnic Tuareg separatist movement, targeted strategic towns including Kidal in the desert north, and Kati, a garrison town near the capital Bamako.

Defence Minister Sadio Camara, the 47-year-old architect of Mali's military alliance with Russia, was killed by a car bomb at his residence.

Kidal and other towns and villages in the north were captured and are now under the control of the FLA and the jihadists, who have since imposed a blockade on Bamako.

In recent years, central Mali has also been the theatre of deadly violence.

After the 2019 killings, Ogossagou was the scene of a February 2020 raid that killed some 30 Fulanis, a nomadic people often accused across the Sahel of aiding jihadists.

In March 2022, around 300 civilians were massacred in the town of Moura, with Human Rights Watch pointing the finger at the Malian army and its foreign allies -- likely Russian mercenaries from the Wagner paramilitary group.

And in June of that year, more than 130 civilians were killed in the town of Diallassagou in attacks attributed to JNIM jihadists.

Wave of arrests, abductions

On Wednesday, security, legal and family sources told AFP that several opposition figures and military personnel had been detained or abducted following the large-scale attacks on the junta.

The military prosecutor's office said last week it had "solid evidence" of the "complicity" of certain members of the military, accusing them of helping with the "planning, coordination and execution" of the attacks.

But a political official said the wave of arrests and abductions smacked of a witch hunt.

"Everything suggests that these events are being used as an opportunity to carry out a purge within the political opposition and the army," the official told AFP, requesting anonymity for security reasons.

Since 2012, Mali has faced a deep security crisis fuelled in particular by violence from fighters affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, as well as local criminal gangs and pro-independence groups.

On 30 April, the JNIM called for a "common front" to "put an end to the junta" and usher in a peaceful and inclusive transition.

The country has been under military rule since back-to-back coups in 2020.