The Al Qaeda-affiliated Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM) claimed to have killed four paramilitaries from the Russian private security group Wagner in an ambush in central Mali, according to a statement authenticated Monday by the NGO. American SITE specialized in monitoring. radical groups.
The information was confirmed by two local elected officials and a hospital source, while a senior Malian army official at the center declined to confirm or deny.
On Saturday, “a group of Wagner mercenaries rode on motorcycles in the Bandiagara region, starting from the town of Djallo and heading for the mountains,” the statement said.
“Allah’s soldiers were watching them (…) and managed to kill four of them and the rest fled,” continues the jihadist group’s propaganda organ.
various operations
In a highly degraded security context, the junta has distanced itself from France and its partners, preferring to rely on Russia to try to stem the jihadist spread that has spread to much of the country, as well as to Burkina Faso and neighboring Niger.
Mali has massively appealed to what it presents as “instructors” from Russia to support its army while Paris and Washington denounce the presence in the country of “mercenaries” of the Russian private group Wagner, which Bamako denies. Russia had admitted in May a Wagner presence in Mali “on a commercial basis”, with no relation to Moscow.
The Malian army has carried out numerous military operations to “hunt down” jihadist groups in central Mali since the beginning of the year. Various local sources reported that the soldiers were accompanied by “white soldiers”.
The GSIM, whose influence on the ground continues to expand, includes a myriad of jihadist groups and operates primarily in Mali and Burkina Faso.
Source: BFM TV
