This is the first time that the support group for Islam and Muslims, a movement linked to al-Qaeda, claims such a catch.
Le Monde With AFP
A Russian member of the private military company Wagner was “captured” by jihadists in central Mali, according to a statement from the support group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM) and transmitted to AFP During the night of Sunday 24 to Monday 25 April. This is the first time that this movement linked to Al-Qaeda has been claiming such a catch. No evidence to attest to your veracity, however, was provided.
Directed by soldiers since 2020, Mali has made massively appeal to what it presents as “instructors” from Russia to support his army, while Paris and Washington regularly denounce the presence in the country of “mercenaries “From the Russian private group Wagner, accusations firmly denied by Bamako.
In his press release, the GSIM claims to have “captured a soldier of the Russian Wagner forces in the Ségou region during the first week of April”. “These murderous forces participated with the Malian army in a parachuting operation on a market in the village of Moura, where they faced several mujahideen before surrounding this locality for five days and killing hundreds of innocent civilians,” added The text, written in Arabic, without more detail on the link between the capture of Russian and the events of Moura.
At the end of March, Moura was the scene of a controversial operation of the Malian army. According to Bamako authorities, Malian soldiers “neutralized” 203 jihadists, but the NGO Human Rights Watch accuses members of the Malian armed forces of having summarily executed 300 civilians with the help of foreign fighters. The UN mission in Mali, MINUSMA, has been asking the Malian authorities since then to allow it to surrender to investigate in order to shed light on these events.
Three attacks against Military camps
Furthermore, according to concordant sources, a Russian national in operation with Malian soldiers was killed on April 19 in central Mali. This is the first confirmed death of a Russian in the context of military operations in the country since the junta took power.
Sunday, the Malian army also announced the death of six soldiers in simultaneous attacks against three military camps in the center of the country. In an audio message transmitted to AFP, these operations were claimed by the Katiba Macina, of the preacher Peul Amadou Koufa. This group of combatants is subject to Iyad Ag Ghaly, the chief of the GSIM.
Mali has been immersed since 2012 in a deep security crisis that the deployment of foreign forces has not made it possible to settle. The military junta in power got closer to Moscow at the same time as she turned from France, militarily engaged in the country against the jihadists since 2013.
Parts of the north of the country, jihadist violence spread to the center and the South, before the conflict is complicated with the appearance of community militias and criminal bands. The conflict has left thousands of deaths, civilians and combatants, and the center of Mali is currently one of the main homes of the crisis in the Sahel.