Mali's army retakes Kidal after Tuareg rebels pull out
The army, backed by Russian forces, entered the northern city separatists had held since April; the rebel FLA says it withdrew without a fight.
Mali's army said on Tuesday, Oct. 6, that it had entered Kidal, a northern city that Tuareg separatists had controlled since April. According to Al Jazeera, the transitional government said on state television that its troops "consolidated their positions" with the backing of "their Russian partners".
Those partners are the Africa Corps, the paramilitary force that answers to Russia's Defense Ministry and replaced the Wagner Group in Mali in June 2025. Mali, in the Sahel region of West Africa, has been run by military officers since the coups of 2020 and 2021, and it turned away from Western allies to lean on Moscow.
The Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), the Tuareg separatist movement that took the city, gave a different account. It spoke of a "strategic and controlled withdrawal" and blamed the Africa Corps' "disproportionate use of air assets", according to Africanews. The armed groups maintain that the soldiers walked in without fighting.
The army's general staff acknowledged for the first time that it carried out "large-scale air and ground operations" in the region alongside the Russians. Africanews quotes an officer saying the troops arrived "earlier than planned". None of the three sources consulted gives casualty or troop figures, and there is no independent confirmation from the ground.
The FLA and JNIM, a jihadist group affiliated with al-Qaeda, took Kidal in April, according to Al Jazeera and Africanews. That coordinated offensive also killed the country's defense minister. The army and Wagner had already recaptured the city in November 2023.
Beverly Ochieng, an analyst at the consultancy Control Risks, said the army's return "affirms the military-led government's authority", but that the change of control is "symbolic" and not "decisive".
It remains to be seen whether the FLA will answer with a counteroffensive. Human rights groups have accused the army and the Russian paramilitaries of killing civilians. DW adds that war crimes have been attributed to all sides.
