Monday 13 July 2026 {HMC} Mali’s army chief said around 30 soldiers had been killed in recent fighting to retake the key northern town of Anefis from Al Qaeda-linked terrorists and Tuareg separatists.
The Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group and the FLA, an ethnic-Tuareg separatist group, seized the town on July 4 in their latest series of coordinated attacks in the West African country.
The terrorists, however, failed to capture a military camp in the town, where a group of army soldiers and paramilitary fighters from Russia’s Africa Corps dug in until reinforcements arrived.
The army said on Friday it had retaken Anefis after nearly a week of fighting.
Sixty people wounded
“I regret the loss of around 30 people, 30 fallen martyrs. We also have around 60 wounded, including serious cases,” the army chief, General Jean Elysee Dao, said on Malian state TV.
The Malian military said it had taken out “around 100” terrorists.
Anefis is located about 100 kilometres from the strategic city of Kidal, which the rebels seized in a previous assault in April in which they also killed Malian Defence Minister Sadio Camara.
SOURCE:AFP
