Mali is facing its largest offensive since its 2012 rebellion began, and a Russian aircraft may have been lost in the fighting. The Azawad Liberation Front, a Tuareg-led rebel coalition known as the FLA, claims its fighters shot down a Mi-24 attack helicopter operated by Africa Corps, the Russian state-controlled paramilitary force that took over Mali operations from the Wagner Group in 2024, near the northern city of Gao on July 4 or 5.
Neither Russia nor Mali’s government has confirmed the loss, though video circulating online shows a burning helicopter fuselage alongside armed fighters identified as Tuareg, and Al Jazeera has aired the footage while noting the claim remains unverified.
The claimed helicopter loss came alongside a separate FLA claim that its fighters ambushed a Russian military convoy retreating from Gao, inflicting what the group described as major losses before the convoy withdrew. The fighting is part of a coordinated offensive launched July 4 by the FLA and JNIM, an al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group, that hit multiple Malian towns simultaneously, including Gao, Anefis, and Aguelhok in the north, plus Sevare and a prison complex near the capital, Bamako.
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Mali’s army initially said the attacks were “vigorously repelled” and later credited Africa Corps with helping fend off assaults on two central towns, a rare public acknowledgment of the two forces working together.
Anefis itself remains genuinely contested. A regional elected official told AFP that rebels now control the town, A regional elected official told AFP that rebels now control the town, with Russian personnel “entrenched in camp there” and “many” Malian soldiers taken prisoner. FLA spokesperson Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane told AFP that “several positions” had fallen at Anefis, and separately told Reuters that the group’s fighters had entered Anefis, a claim Reuters said it could not independently verify.
Mali’s army and Africa Corps both maintain that their forces still hold the town and continue fighting there, with Africa Corps’ own channels explicitly describing rebel claims of capturing the town as a deliberate disinformation campaign.
The renewed assault follows a rebel offensive that began in late April, when the FLA and JNIM seized the strategic town of Kidal and killed Mali’s defense minister, forcing Malian and Africa Corps troops to withdraw from several northern positions.
Anefis and Aguelhok had been the last towns in the Kidal region where Mali’s army maintained a presence following that April offensive, making the current fighting a test of whether the junta and its Russian allies can hold their remaining foothold in the north.
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