Al-Qaeda affiliate claims Mali attack that killed key junta figure

Jihadists linked with Al-Qaeda have claimed responsibility for an attack this week that killed the chief of staff of Mali's junta leader, and another ambush, the SITE Intelligence monitoring group said Friday.

Oumar Traore, chief of staff for Colonel Assimi Goita, the transitional president, was among several people who died in an ambush Tuesday near the Mauritanian border, according to a document from the Malian presidency.

Traore was part of a team that was accompanying engineers to scout for sites to drill for water, who came under attack some 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of the capital Bamako.

The presidency said three others also died.

On Friday, Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it had killed Traore and two members of the army, according to a statement reported by SITE, which monitors jihadist websites.

The group also claimed to have taken two hostages.

In the same statement, JNIM claimed to have carried out a separate attack on Wednesday that killed seven soldiers in an ambush between Sokolo and Farabougou in central Mali.

It said three of its own fighters were also killed in the attack, according to the SITE report.

The Malian army has not confirmed the incident.

Mali has been battling a security and political crisis since jihadist and separatist insurgencies broke out in the north in 2012.

Jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group have since escalated their operations into central Mali and neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

Thousands of civilians, police and troops have been killed across the region, and more than two million have fled their homes.

The Sahel country has been ruled by the military since August 2020.