2023-09-12 15:28:09
In the context of renewed tension in northern Mali, armed groups claimed responsibility for an offensive once morest the army in Bouarem on Tuesday. Although they say they have taken control, at least provisionally, of this key city, the situation remains unclear for the moment and the Malian authorities have made no comment on this operation.
Published on: 09/12/2023 – 5:28 p.m.
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Armed groups from northern Mali claimed responsibility, on Tuesday, September 12, for an offensive once morest the army in Bourem, a key town of which they say they have taken at least temporary control but where the situation remains confused.
No comments were obtained from the Malian authorities on this operation which would confirm fears of a resumption of hostilities between these armed groups and the central State, and the end of the peace agreement signed in 2015.
Rare elements coming from this remote area reflect a confusing situation on the ground. Testimonies indicate an intervention by the Malian air force and a resumption of control by the army.
The Permanent Strategic Framework (CSP), an alliance of armed groups which signed a peace agreement with the Malian state in 2015, said it had carried out an operation on the garrison town of Bourem which “ended in the control of the camp and various advanced posts” of the Malian armed forces and their ally the Russian paramilitary group Wagner. There was “intense fighting,” said CSP spokesperson Mohamed El Maouloud Ramadane.
“The unidentified armed groups had surrounded the camp, and were circling the town, but the planes reacted once morest them. We no longer hear any shooting, the FAMA (Malian Armed Forces) are in the town in numbers everywhere,” he said. said a resident contacted by telephone, Mahamoud Ould Mety.
Such an operation by the groups would signify the bankruptcy of the peace agreement signed in 2015 by an alliance of predominantly Tuareg armed groups who entered into rebellion once morest the central state in 2012, by the government and by loyalist armed groups.
After weeks of growing tensions, one of the signatories of the so-called Algiers agreement, the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), indicated Monday evening that it now considers itself at “war” with the junta which took power by force in Bamako in 2020.
The CSP said on Tuesday that it was acting in a state of “self-defense in the face of provocations by terrorists from the Malian army accompanied by the Wagner militia.”
Bourem is a junction near the Niger River and on the road between Timbuktu and Gao and towards Kidal, a Tuareg stronghold, further north.
Escalade
Tensions have continued to grow for months between the CSP and the CMA on the one hand and the junta on the other, raising fears of a resumption of hostilities that began in 2012. Independence and Salafist insurgencies then plunged this poor country and trapped in a deep security, political and humanitarian crisis from which it has still not emerged.
If the predominantly Tuareg groups accepted a ceasefire in 2014, the jihadists continued the fight once morest the central state and any foreign presence under the banner of Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State organization. The jihadist spread has reached the center of the country, neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
In the vast desert or semi-desert areas of the north, as well as the regions of Timbuktu and Gao, rivalries have intensified in recent weeks between the multitude of armed actors vying for control of the territory: jihadist groups once morest the Malian army, groups jihadists among themselves, Tuareg armed groups once morest jihadists, and Tuareg groups once morest the Malian army.
They gave rise to a succession of attacks, security incidents and clashes between the army and the CMA.
This escalation coincides with a security reconfiguration in the North following the departure of the French anti-jihadist force in 2022 and that, in progress, of the UN mission (Minusma), both pushed towards the exit by the junta.
The CMA does not intend for Minusma to hand over its camps to the Malian authorities, as it did in August in Ber, near Timbuktu. It believes that under the 2014 and 2015 arrangements, these areas should return to its control.
The junta has made the restoration of sovereignty one of its mantras, an objective which clashes with the various armed groups, which control vast swaths of territory.
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