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Mali: 9 Malian soldiers killed in an attack in the Center

Neuf Malian soldiers were killed on Wednesday in an attack blamed on jihadists against their post in the center of the country, one of the hotbeds of the violence which has bloodied the Sahel. It is a new assessment drawn up by security officials that affirms it. Rarely in this kind of attack, the attackers used one or more armored vehicles, according to one of these officials. The Boni post, between Douentza and Hombori, in the Mopti region, was attacked around 6 a.m. (local and GMT) “by heavily armed individuals in armored vehicles,” one of these officials told the Agency. France-Presse. The attack also left several injured and caused significant damage to the camp, he continued on condition of anonymity following a common practice for such information. Another security official and a local elected official joined by AFP confirmed the human toll.

A jihadist response to Operation “Eclipse”

It is not known where the armored vehicle (s) could have come from. As they did again in Boni, the jihadists, who travel by motorbike and pick-up, commonly take equipment to the scene of their attacks. The jihadists have taken at least a dozen armored vehicles from Malian forces, but also from neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger in recent years, says Héni Nsaibia, researcher at the Acled project, specializing in collecting data relating to conflicts. These armored vehicles can be found from one country to another.

The Malian army said on social networks that it had received air support from Barkhane, the French anti-jihadist force in the Sahel. A Malian military official said the jihadists had suffered “significant losses”, without giving further details. The sector has recently been the scene of intense operations, such as the operation called Eclipse and joint with the Malian and French armies against the jihadists. The Malian army reported on January 26 that Eclipse had “neutralized” a hundred jihadists. The sector saw the deaths of three French soldiers killed by an artisanal mine at the end of December, and that of six Malian soldiers killed in two attacks at the end of January.

Jihadist groups abound

The area is an area of ​​sparse forests and bush dominated by a rocky massif where elements of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM, or Jnim in Arabic), a jihadist alliance affiliated with Al-Qaeda, are located. . Other groups, linked for their part to the Islamic State (IS) organization, are also present in the region.

Since 2012 and the outbreak of independence and then jihadist rebellions in the North, Mali has been sinking into a multifaceted crisis that has left thousands of dead, civilians and combatants, and hundreds of thousands displaced, despite the support of the international community. and the intervention of UN, African and French forces. The violence has spread to the center of the country, which has become one of its main centers, and to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger. The armed groups that appeared in 2015 in central Mali thrived on the old antagonisms linked to the land, between pastoralists and farmers and between Fulani, Bambara and Dogon ethnic groups. They attack whatever remains of the state’s representation and foment or stir up these tensions. Community “self-defense groups” are also accused of abuses. A summit is due to bring together the G5 Sahel countries (Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad) on February 15 and 16 in N’Djamena to take stock of the security situation in the sub-region, with a horizon of a possible resizing of Barkhane.

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