After two days of conflict near Mali’s border with Algeria, Mali’s Northern Tuareg rebel group, known as the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security, and Development (CSP-PSD), announced on Sunday that it had killed and injured dozens of Mali and Wagner mercenary soldiers.
While Malian officials have acknowledged the deaths of only two of Mali’s soldiers and say they killed 20 rebels in that operation, the rebel movement claimed that it had captured armored vehicles, trucks, and tankers in the fighting zone near Tinzaouaten (Northern Mali) on Thursday and Friday, according to Reuters.
The rebel group also claimed it had destroyed a helicopter that crashed in the village of Kidal, hundreds of kilometers distant.
According to statements by the Malian army, two troops were killed and ten were injured. One of its helicopters crashed near Kidal on Friday while on a regular operation, but no one was harmed, the army said.
Several Russian military blogs stated on Sunday that at least 20 Wagner members had been killed in an ambush near the Algerian border.
“Wagner PMC employees were slain in Mali while traveling in a convoy with government soldiers. . . . Some were captured,” claimed Semyon Pegov, a well-known Russian military blogger who goes by the name War Gonzo.
The Baza Telegram news channel, which has ties to Russia’s security organizations, stated that at least 20 Wagner fighters had been killed.
The CSP stated in another statement on Sunday that it had engaged and destroyed a Malian army battalion backed by the Wagner group. It stated that the enemy had been “annihilated” and that the few troops and mercenaries who had survived the conflict had been captured.
Seven of its fighters were killed, and 12 were injured, it said.
Mali, whose military forces took control in coups in 2020 and 2021, is fighting a long-running Islamist insurgency.
Russian troops in the area are not Wagner mercenaries, but rather trainers assisting local troops with Russian-purchased equipment, according to Baza.
Baza’s report on Sunday stated that Wagner fighters had been in Mali since at least 2021.
The Tuareg are a Berber nomadic group who live in the Sahara, including sections of northern Mali. Many of them feel sidelined by the Malian administration.
In 2012, the separatist organization started an insurgency against Mali’s junta government, which was eventually hijacked by Islamist groups.