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A deadly airstrike on a market in northern Mali has killed at least 18 people, according to a Tuareg separatist group, while the Malian army claims it targeted armed militants.
The Collective for the Defense of the Rights of the Azawad People, part of a Tuareg separatist coalition, said the attack took place 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of Lerneb in the Timbuktu region. The group condemned the strike as a “barbaric act from another age” and said seven others were injured.
Malian Army Defends Strike
In contrast, Mali’s military said on X (formerly Twitter) that it carried out an airstrike on a “refuge” in the area, killing 11 terrorists.
For over a decade, Mali—along with neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger—has battled an Islamist insurgency involving groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Since taking power in a 2021 coup, Mali’s ruling junta has expelled French forces and turned to Russian mercenaries for security assistance, but violence has continued.
Escalating Tensions with Tuareg Separatists
Tensions between Mali’s government and Tuareg separatist groups have escalated in recent months. In February, the Front for the Liberation of Azawad accused the army and Russian Wagner mercenaries of executing at least 24 people in northern Mali.
Rida Lyammouri, a senior fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, suggested the contradictory reports on the latest attack might be due to military strikes in civilian-populated areas.
“Jihadi fighters are known to visit markets for supplies. The Malian army may have deemed the targets significant enough to accept a certain degree of civilian casualties, though they were not the primary goal,” Lyammouri said.
Alternatively, he noted, both the army and separatists may be misrepresenting the dead to suit their political narratives—whether to justify counterterrorism operations or bolster claims of government human rights violations.
With conflicting reports, the true impact of the strike remains unclear, but it underscores the growing instability in Mali’s conflict-ridden north.
