Affiliate of Al-Qaeda claims A key junta figure was slain in an incident in Mali

affiliate of Al-Qaeda claims A key junta figure was slain in an incident in Mali.

The chief of staff for the head of Mali’s junta was slain in an attack this week, and another ambush was also claimed by jihadists associated with Al-Qaeda, the SITE Intelligence monitoring site reported on Friday.

According to a statement from the Malian presidency, Oumar Traore, the chief of staff for Colonel Assimi Goita, the interim president, was one of many people killed in an ambush on Tuesday close to the Mauritanian border.

Around 400 kilometres (250 miles) north of the capital Bamako, Traore was a member of a team escorting engineers who were looking for potential locations to dig for water when they came under assault.

Three further fatalities, according to the president,

According to a statement cited by SITE, which keeps watch over jihadist websites, Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) claimed responsibility for the attack on Friday and stated that it had murdered Traore and two army personnel.

Additionally, the organisation claimed to have kidnapped two people.

In the same statement, JNIM claimed responsibility for a second strike on Wednesday in central Mali that resulted in the deaths of seven troops during an ambush between Sokolo and Farabougou.

According to the SITE report, it claimed that three of its own fighters were also killed in the strike.

The event has not been verified by the Malian army.

Since jihadist and separatist insurgencies began in the north of the country in 2012, Mali has struggled with a security and political crisis.

Since then, jihadists connected to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have intensified their operations in central Mali as well as in the neighbouring countries of Niger and Burkina Faso.

More than two million people have fled their homes in the region, and thousands of civilians, police officers, and soldiers have been slain.

Since August 2020, the military has been in charge of the Sahelian nation.