Eight soldiers and 57 “terrorists” were killed during an uprising in northern Mali that rival jihadist groups, including Islamic State, were busy, Malaysian troops said on Saturday.
Friday’s battle followed a plane crash a day after France and its allies announced their withdrawal from the African continent.
The Malian military says it has carried out an attack on a rebel stronghold after troops were attacked by unknown armed men in the war-torn north of Archam, near the Burkina Faso-Niger border.
Eight soldiers were killed and 57 rebels “did not take sides” in the ensuing violent clashes, soldiers said.
Mali, a closed nation of 21 million people, has struggled to cope with the brutal jihadist violence that erupted in 2012, before spreading to neighboring Burkina Faso and Niger.
Thousands of soldiers and civilians were killed and more than 2 million people were displaced by the conflict in Sahel-wide, Mali’s base.
About 40 residents – believed to be loyal to jihadist groups, according to local sources – were killed this week in the same area as Friday’s incident.
It happened in an area called the “three frontiers”, the epicenter of jihadist violence in which Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and the major jihadist alliance of the Sahel, al-Qaida-based GSIM, was active.
The Malian military says it has been searching for “terrorist settlements” in the area. Troops deployed in the three-border area comprising the Mali army, as well as French and European troops and UN peacekeepers.
The other day, French President Emmanuel Macron announced the withdrawal of French troops from Mali.
France first intervened in 2013 and has about 4,600 troops stationed across the Sahel, 2,400 of them in Mali. Relations between the two countries deteriorated after Malian military officials led by Col Assimi Goïta ousted President-elect Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta in August 2020. The military then ousted interim government leaders last year in a second coup.
International financial partners – including France and the Economic Community of West African States – have called on the junta to adhere to the promise of elections in February 2022 and to restore democracy. But the junta then floated plans to keep it in power for up to five years.
On Friday, a Malian-led government called on France to withdraw its troops from the Sahel nation “without delay”. Mali also called for a small group of European Takuba special forces, formed in 2020, to leave immediately.
But Macron responded with a statement saying he would not endanger the safety of French troops and that withdrawal would take place “in an orderly manner”.