The two army convoys did not go unnoticed in the desert. Guarded by separatist rebels from the Permanent Strategic Framework (PSF), they left Gao, in northeastern Mali, a few days apart. Head north and you will reach Kidal, a historic stronghold of the Tuareg rebellions.
After a difficult journey, slowed down by heavy rains that damaged the roads, while waiting for the slightest ambush, the first arrived at the Kidal camp on Thursday 12 September. In total, about fifty vehicles: trucks, pick-ups and almost twenty armoured vehicles. The second, a little less substantial, crossed the camp gates on 19 September. Again, more than twenty military vehicles.
The latter, visible in satellite images verified by The worldThey were also noticed by the specialized account @casusbellii on the social network
On board these convoys were Malian soldiers and Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group. Their number, difficult to estimate, is believed to be in the hundreds. Were they sent to Kidal as part of the celebration of Independence Day on 22 September or for future operations? Several sources, both within the army and among the CSP rebels, believe that their objective could be to take Tin Zaouatine, on the border with Algeria, and erase the affront they suffered there at the end of July.
At the time, the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and their Russian auxiliaries had fallen into ambushes by CSP rebels and then by jihadists from the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM). The toll was bloody: at least 47 Malian soldiers and 84 Wagner mercenaries were killed, according to a CSP press release.
After the prestigious reconquest of Kidal from the Tuareg rebels in November 2023, this defeat of Tin Zaouatine seemed like a slap in the face for the junta of Colonel Assimi Goïta, which has made the reconquest of the national territory one of its priorities since taking power in a coup d’état in 2020. But also for the Wagner Group, which, in several years of deployment in Africa, had never suffered similar losses on the continent.
“It was a painful defeat. Since then, Tin Zaouatine has become a symbolic issue. A Malian officer slips in. In the following days, the Russian paramilitary group sent reinforcements to Bamako. Some already sensed that they were destined to return to avenge their brothers in arms who had fallen in the far north of Mali.
A snub to Wagner
For Colonel Goïta and his Russian allies, the need to achieve a resounding victory is all the more urgent as another humiliation must be erased: the double attack in Bamako on 17 September, which left at least 70 dead and 200 wounded in the ranks of the defence and security forces: one of the worst tolls in recent years. That day, two GSIM commandos attacked a gendarmerie school in the centre of the capital and the airport, where the jihadists caused considerable damage (four military planes destroyed and the presidential plane burned) after taking control for a few hours.
The attack was also a snub for Wagner, who has a logistics detachment at Air Force Base 101 adjacent to the airport. His men on the scene, as well as Malian soldiers, managed to repel the attack. According to a Malian military source, a dozen Russian mercenaries were killed at the airport.
“The FAMa were interested in trying an operation to restore their image” “This is the first time that the CSP rebels have been reorganising since they were driven out of Kidal at the end of 2023,” says Jean-Hervé Jézéquel, Sahel director of the International Crisis Group (ICG). At the end of last week, a convoy of about forty vehicles reached Aguelhok, 130 kilometres as the crow flies north of Kidal. Faced with a possible large-scale army offensive, the CSP rebels, who have been reorganising since they were driven out of Kidal at the end of 2023, say they are prepared and remain on guard. “ we watch them “, comments a rebel commander seriously.
Across the border, these troop movements are not welcomed by the Algerian leaders, who have been in a latent conflict with the Malian transitional authorities for several months. Algiers does not want foreign troops to regroup a few kilometres from its border and fears possible unrest. At the end of July and beginning of August, the Malian air force, with the support of its Burkinabe allies, carried out several drone attacks in the Tin Zaouatine region, forcing hundreds of civilians to urgently seek refuge on the Algerian side.
