Jihadist fighters have launched a series of simultaneous attacks on military posts across numerous towns in Mali – the third major assault on the army over the last month.
Mali’s army said it repelled Tuesday morning’s attacks, allegedly “neutralising” more than 80 militants, without saying if there were any other casualties.
However, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda-linked group who said it was behind the attacks, said it had taken control of three army barracks.
For more than a decade Mali has been wracked by a deadly Islamist insurgency, as well as attacks from separatist movements.
In a statement broadcast on national TV, army spokesperson Souleymane Dembele said: “The enemy suffered significant losses in every location where they engaged with the security and defence forces.”
Col Dembele added that the army recovered weapons, vehicles and motorcycles from the assailants.
Earlier, the armed forces said that the attacks had occurred across seven towns and cities, including Binoli, Kayes and Sandere, near the border with Senegal. There were also attacks further north, near Mali’s frontier with Mauritania.
One resident in Kayes told the AFP news agency: “We woke up in shock this morning. There’s gunfire, and from my house I can see smoke billowing towards the governor’s residence.”
JNIM called its attack “co-ordinated and high quality” in a statement posted on social media. They did not detail any casualties.
The group has also said it carried out two other significant recent attacks.
On 2 June, militants targeted both an army camp and airport in the ancient, northern city of Timbuktu.
Just a day before, a raid killed at least 30 soldiers in the centre of the country.
The attacks, the latest sign of rising insecurity in Mali and the wider Sahel region, came after the United States Africa Command warned about growing efforts by various different Islamist militant groups which operate in the Sahel to gain access to West Africa’s coastline.
During a press conference in May, the commander of United States Africa Command (Africom), Gen Michael Langley, described recent attacks in Nigeria, the wider Sahel, and the Lake Chad Basin as deeply troubling.
He warned that the groups’ access to the coast would significantly boost their capacity for smuggling and arms trafficking.