THE authorities in Mali say their soldiers killed dozens of militant Islamists as they repelled an attack on a military base on Sunday.
Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), a jihadist group affiliated to al-Qaeda, said it was behind the assault where its fighters took control of the base in the town of San.
The army, which also suffered casualties, disputed it had ceded control – but said its soldiers had to “retreat temporarily”.
It comes as Mali’s security situation appears to be deteriorating, more than a decade after a jihadist insurgency began taking root in the north of the country.
“The enemy was eliminated and the attack was successfully repelled. Around 40 terrorists were eliminated,” Lt Col El Oumrani, the commander of the 23rd regiment in the San garrison, said in a video.
He urged residents to remain vigilant, insisting that his soldiers had “not gone anywhere” and the base remained under army control.
“The camp of the 23rd is not empty, it is under the custody of the army.”
The attack started at around 05:00 local time (GMT) on Sunday and lasted for about two hours, according to witnesses quoted by the French broadcaster RFI.
The attackers came on motorcycles and on foot, some disguised in army uniforms to infiltrate the base, RFI reported the witnesses as saying.
One said the militants entered the camp and held it “for a long time before leaving”.
“I noticed that the fighting took place between 200 and 300 metres from the camp. Several terrorists were killed by soldiers, but others fled; some even hid in houses and others went into the forest,” the witness said.
At least 10 soldiers were killed in the fighting and the assailants briefly took over the camp, the AFP news agency quoted security and local sources.
The army told national broadcaster ORTM that the militants used drones, heavy machine guns and armoured vehicles to breach the site’s perimeter.
Since 2012, Mali has been plagued by insurgencies and large parts of the north and east of the country remain outside government control.
April saw nationwide, co-ordinated attacks by an alliance of jihadists and separatist rebels in the north – the Azawad Liberation Front – seeking to overthrow the military regime of Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a coup in 2020.
During the attacks, Defence Minister Sadio Camara was killed in an apparent suicide truck bombing on his residence near the capital, Bamako.
JNIM has diversified its operations and begun targeting not only northern Mali but also central and southern Mali, showing an ability to penetrate deeper into the territory despite numerous military operations.
In the wake of the coup, which was in part carried out over the failure to ease the security situation, Mali rejected French military help and instead turned to Russia.