An Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for a deadly attack in Mali’s capital Bamako that saw them temporarily take control of part of the international airport.
Images broadcast on the communication channels of the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) group showed fighters strolling around and firing randomly into the windows of the presidential hangar in the airport complex.
The country’s general staff later said that the attack killed a number of military personnel but did not give a detailed toll.
It confirmed that a gendarmes’ training centre and the city’s airport were targeted.
The hangar usually hosts official guests and the head of state of the West African country, which has been under military rule since coups in 2020 and 2021.
One video showed a fighter calmly firing at the engine of an aircraft, while in others thick smoke could be seen rising from the airport and the hangar of the presidential plane.
“This cowardly and treacherous attack caused some loss of human lives on our side,” including some trainee military police, the general staff said in a statement read out on state television, adding that the attack had been repelled.
“This situation was rapidly brought under control,” it said. “The combing of the area is ongoing.”
Details about the surprise attack were scarce throughout the day, after volleys of gunfire interspersed with explosions broke out at around 5:00 am (0500 GMT).
JNIM said on its communication channels that a “special operation” targeted “the military airport and the training centre of the Malian gendarmes in the centre of the Malian capital” at dawn.
It said the attack caused “huge human and material losses and the destruction of several military aircraft”.
Unverified videos circulating on social media showed charred bodies on the ground.
Bamako is normally spared the sort of attacks that occur almost daily in some parts of the West African country.
Jihadists struck a nearby military camp in 2022. In 2016, gunmen attacked a Bamako hotel housing the former European training mission of the Malian army, with no casualties reported among the mission staff.
Heavy exchanges of fire
With the flow of information restricted under the ruling junta, details on how Tuesday’s attack was carried out and its results are sketchy.
Heavy exchanges of fire took place early afternoon near the police station controlling access to the civilian airport terminal, security and airport officials told AFP on condition of anonymity.
An intelligence source said the attackers used rocket-launchers.
The firing seemed to have stopped by mid-afternoon, an AFP correspondent said.
Earlier, the army said that the situation was “under control” after what it called a foiled infiltration attempt by “terrorists” into the military police base.
The junta-led authorities generally use the term “terrorists” to describe jihadists and separatists in the north of the country.
“The terrorists have been neutralised. The sweep is continuing,” the army’s chief of staff, General Oumar Diarra, said on state television.
Images broadcast by the public TV channel showed around 20 blindfolded prisoners, sitting on the floor with their hands tied.
The army urged the population to remain calm.
Diarra spoke only of “slightly complex infiltration attempts” at the training centre, with no mention of the claimed assault on the military airport.
The police training camp is a few minutes from the airport district, where the military facility neighbours the civilian one.
Regional unrest
Poor and landlocked Mali has since 2012 been ravaged by different factions affiliated to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, as well as by self-declared defence forces and bandits.
The violence has spilt over into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.
Mali has been ruled by a military junta since back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021.
Under junta leader Colonel Assimi Goita, Mali broke a long-standing alliance with European partners and former colonial power France, turning instead to Russia and its Wagner mercenary group for support.
The military government last year also ordered the withdrawal of the UN stabilisation mission, MINUSMA, and in January ended a 2015 peace agreement with separatist groups in the north.
Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger — the latter two also now under military leadership — formed their own Sahel alliance a year ago and all pledged to leave regional bloc ECOWAS.
The worsening security situation in Mali has been compounded by a humanitarian and economic crisis.
The military leaders have pledged to regain control of the entire country.
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