Al Qaeda affiliate, Tuareg rebels claim responsibility for coordinated attacks on Mali forces

An al Qaeda affiliate and Tuareg rebels claim ​responsibility ​on Saturday ​for coordinated attacks across Mali, in one of the boldest operations insurgents have mounted in their campaign against the military-led government.

Mali’s army says it killed “several hundred” assailants and repelled the assault, which hit multiple sites in or near the capital, Bamako. It says a large-scale sweep operation was underway in Bamako, the nearby barracks town of Kati and elsewhere in the gold-producing country.

Al Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) issues a statement, published by SITE ‌Intelligence Group, claiming responsibility for attacks in Kati, on the Bamako airport and in localities further north, including Mopti, Sevare and Gao.

It also says the city of Kidal was “captured” in an operation coordinated with the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg-dominated rebel group.

FLA spokesperson Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane earlier said on social media that its forces had taken control of positions in Gao and one of two military camps in Kidal.

Reuters could not independently verify the JNIM and FLA claims.

“This looks like the biggest coordinated attack for years,” says Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Foundation.