Ambush Kills Four Mali Police Officers

The paramilitary police reported that four gendarmes were killed and three others injured after being ambushed on Sunday in western Mali, a region vulnerable to terrorist attacks.

During the attack in Koula, the force said that two police vehicles were set on fire and two others, armed with machine guns, were taken hostage by the attackers.

Two of the attackers were killed, while the remaining attackers were captured.

Although the gendarmerie declined to identify the perpetrators, Islamic groups frequently target police, soldiers, and Malian governmental objectives.

Mali has experienced a nearly 11-year security crisis that was brought on by a local uprising in the north that turned into a full-fledged Islamic insurgency.

One of the poorest countries in the world has suffered terrible economic devastation, thousands of deaths, and hundreds of thousands of home evacuations.

Mali has been under military administration since August 2020, which has strained relations with France, the nation’s longtime ally, and strengthened ties with Russia.

The violence has primarily afflicted the country’s centre and east, and it has expanded to the neighbouring nations of Burkina Faso and Niger. However, it has not spared the west and is moving south, frightening Senegal as well as Mali’s other neighbours.

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The junta asserts that it put the Islamic State and al-Qaida-affiliated jihadis on the back foot.

Although the authorities had previously recognised that two-thirds of the region was not under state control, Malian Prime Minister Choguel Kokalla Maiga stated last week that there was no longer any area of the nation where the army could not go.

Experts and a recent U.N. study that stated that security circumstances had worsened in the central Sahel, “especially in Burkina Faso and Mali,” contradict Maiga’s assessment of security.