The Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM), a jihadist alliance affiliated with Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for an attack on Bamako’s military airport and a military camp on Tuesday, a daring operation unprecedented in years in the Malian capital.
“A special operation (targeted) the military airport and the training center of the Malian gendarmes in the center of the Malian capital (Bamako) this morning at dawn, causing enormous human and material losses and the destruction of several military aircraft,” said the GSIM (or JNIM according to its Arabic acronym) via its communication channels.
Beyond the version of the JNIM and the authorities who assured that they had control of the situation, the scale of this attack, the modus operandi and the human toll are poorly defined, in a context of tension and strong restrictions imposed on the circulation of information under the junta in power since 2020.
While some regions of Mali remain the prey of almost daily attacks, its capital had been preserved from violence since an anti-Western attack in March 2016 targeting a hotel housing the former European training mission for the Malian army.
“Early this morning, a group of terrorists attempted to infiltrate the Faladié gendarmerie school,” the army said in a statement posted on social media. “The situation is under control,” it said in a message also broadcast in a Bamanakan-language radio-television flash.
“Terrorists” commonly refer to jihadists and Tuareg separatists from the north of the country, in the language of the military-dominated authorities.
The Ministry of Security reported “terrorist attacks” against “sensitive points in the capital”, including the gendarmerie school.
The gendarmerie school is just a few minutes by road from the airport sector, where the military airport adjoins civilian facilities. The Ministry of Transport announced in a statement that access to the airport was “temporarily restricted in order to prevent any risks.”
Unknown balance sheet
“Bamako airport is temporarily closed due to the events,” said an airport official, without saying how long this measure would last. A witness confirmed to AFP that the area was closed off and that he could not access the airport via the national road.
No human toll has been officially communicated, while videos circulating on social networks show bodies.
Search operations are underway, according to the army. It calls on the population to remain calm and avoid the area.
Bamako woke up around 5 a.m. to the sound of gunfire of varying intensity interspersed with explosions, AFP reported. Black smoke rose at daybreak from an area near the airport. A witness said he was stuck with other worshipers in a mosque near the shooting zone at the time of the first morning prayer.
The French Lycée Liberté issued a message announcing that it would remain closed “due to external events.” UN employees also received a message telling them to “limit (their) movements until further notice.”
Mali, a poor and landlocked country facing the spread of jihadism and a deep multidimensional crisis since 2012, has been the scene of two putschs, in August 2020 and May 2021. It has since been governed by a junta led by Colonel Assimi Goïta. Following him, its neighbors, Burkina Faso and Niger, have also seen military forces seize power by force.
The authorities claim to have reversed the trend against the jihadists in their favor. In 2022, however, the jihadists carried out an equally audacious attack against the military camp of Kati, a stronghold of the junta located about fifteen kilometers from Bamako.
Since 2022, the military in power has broken the old alliance with France and its European partners, to turn militarily and politically towards Russia.
They have multiplied acts of rupture, pushing the UN mission MINUSMA out and denouncing the agreement signed in 2015 with the independence groups of the north, considered essential to stabilize the country. They founded with the Burkinabe and Nigerien military regimes an Alliance of Sahel States just a year ago, and announced with them that they were leaving the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), accused of being subservient to the former French colonial power.
The Malian authorities continue to face serious challenges, not only security-related, but also economic, social and structural.