The Al-Qaeda-affiliated Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM) claimed to have killed four paramilitaries from the Russian private security group Wagner in an ambush in central Mali, according to a statement authenticated by the NGO on Monday. American SITE specializing in monitoring radical groups.
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The information was confirmed to AFP by two local elected officials and a hospital source, while a senior Malian army official in the center refused to confirm or deny.
On Saturday, “
a group of Wagner mercenaries rode out on motorcycles in the Bandiagara region, starting from the village of Djallo and heading towards the mountains
,” the statement said.
"
The soldiers of Allah were watching them (...) and were able to kill four of them and the rest fled
", continues the propaganda organ of the jihadist group.
In a very degraded security context, the junta turned away from France and its partners, preferring to rely on Russia to try to stem the jihadist spread which has spread to a large part of the country as well as Burkina Faso. and neighboring Niger.
Mali has appealed massively to what it presents as "
instructors
" from Russia to support its army while Paris and Washington denounce the presence in the country of "
mercenaries
" from the private Russian group Wagner, which Bamako denies.
Russia had admitted in May a presence of Wagner in Mali "
on a commercial basis
", unrelated to Moscow.
“
Four Russians were killed over the weekend by jihadists near Bandiagara
,” a local elected official told AFP, who requested anonymity.
Another local authority confirmed the information.
A Malian hospital source in the region also confirmed "
the death in combat of four Russians
".
“
One of them passed through Mopti hospital
,” he added.
The Malian army has carried out numerous military operations to "
hunt down
" jihadist groups in central Mali since the beginning of the year.
Several local sources reported that the soldiers were accompanied by "
white soldiers
".
The GSIM, whose influence on the ground continues to expand, includes a myriad of jihadist groups and operates mainly in Mali and Burkina Faso.