Violent clashes in northern Mali pitted Malian soldiers supported by Russian instructors against separatists and
jihadists. There were deaths on both sides, including the commander of the Russian detachment.
Last week, fighting broke out between the Permanent Strategic Framework for the Defence of the People of Azawad (CSP-DPA), which brings together the rebel movements of northern Mali, and Malian army soldiers accompanied by Russian instructors from the private military company (SMP) Wagner, in Tinzaouatene, on the Algerian border.
On Saturday 27 July, images of battles and corpses of white men circulated on social media, indicating a ‘setback’ inflicted by the CSP on the Malian soldiers and Russian instructors.
The CSP claimed to have “definitively annihilated” the Russian and Malian columns, noting that it had got its hands on “significant rolling stock and weaponry.”
“The few survivors from the ranks of the FAMas and the Wagner militia were taken prisoner,” stated the CSP-DPA
communiqué, which deplored the loss of seven lives.
GSIM claimed its fighters had killed 50 ‘mercenaries’ and 10 Malian soldiers.
The statement said that the “militants,” without specifying whether they were rebels or GSIM jihadists, had again attacked the musicians (the nickname given to the members of Wagner), but the attack had been repulsed. According to the statement, the attacks intensified with the radicals using ‘drones’ and ‘kamikaze vehicles’, resulting in “casualties among members of the Wagner SMP and Malian soldiers.”
The last radiogram of the Prud group, received at the end of the afternoon, revealed that “three of us remained.” Wagner announced the death of the detachment commander
In a press release issued the same day, the General Staff of the Malian Armed Forces stated that the “area remains a stronghold where terrorists and traffickers of all kinds have converged,” acknowledging the loss of human life without specifying the number.
For its part, Wagner, whose men were engaged alongside the Malian soldiers, made an official statement on Monday 29 July, although the authorities resulting from the rectification of the transition in May 2021, nine months after the coup which overthrew Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, denied the presence of the private company in Mali.
According to the statement published by the private security company’s official channel, the fighting took place between 22 and 27 July 2024 and pitted “FAMa soldiers against fighters from the 13th Assault Detachment of SMP Wagner, under the leadership of commander Sergei Chevtchenko, indicative of Prud, against militants” from the “Mouvement de Coordination de l’Azawad (CMA)”, and the Islam and Muslims Support Group (GSIM), the Sahelian branch of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Looking back at the fighting, Wagner points out that “on the first day, the Prud group destroyed most of the Islamists and put the rest to flight.
However, a sandstorm allowed the radicals to regroup and increase their numbers to 1,000. As a result, the command of SMP Wagner decided to deploy reinforcements to the combat zone to help the 13th Assault Detachment.
AC/Sf/fss/as/APA