In Mali, the army announced that it had taken control of the town of Inafarak on Monday, July 22, on the edge of the Kidal region, barely ten kilometers from the border with Algeria. A hard blow for the rebels of the CSP-DPA (Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad).
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In its press release released Monday evening, the Malian army presents Inafarak as a ” very important commercial crossroads “, “ subject ” to ” traffic “, and used by the ” mafia coalition of armed groups, perpetrators of abuse and racketeering against peaceful populations. »
An expression which, according to the habit of the Malian transitional authorities, refers in no particular order to the jihadists of Jnim, linked to Al-Qaeda, and the rebels of the CSP-DPA (Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad), signatories of the 2015 peace agreement, broken by Bamako.
Demonstration
Last November, the Malian army and its Russian auxiliaries of Wagner – now integrated into the “African Corps” controlled by Moscow – had dislodged the CSP rebels from their stronghold of Kidal. Their arrival, eight months later, in the distant Inafarak – more than 120 kilometers north of Tessalit, almost stuck to Algeria – constitutes a clear demonstration of force, and a new blow for the rebels, whose fighters had largely retreated towards the Algerian border.
Read alsoMali: Kidal, a small town and an immense symbol
Patrols
According to several local civilian and security sources, the Fama and Wagner withdrew from Inafarak on Monday afternoon before sending back a large convoy of around twenty vehicles on Tuesday, which also stopped in Boughessa. The next stop is Tinzaouaten “, predicts a Tuareg notable close to the transitional authorities, citing a border town between Mali and Algeria further east. And to comment: ” The army occupies the ground, it doesn’t even need to fight anymore. »
Contacted by RFI, the CSP did not wish to comment officially.
A rebel military officer puts this army movement into perspective, saying that it does not, in his eyes, represent a genuine takeover: ” We only had one checkpoint in Inafarak. The army patrols, but our positions, our training camps, are far from populated areas. “And to recall the multiple exactions of the army and Wagner in the region of Kidal against the civilian populations, as in Ersane, Takalote or even Abeibara, where around sixty bodies were discovered at the beginning of the month.
Read alsoMali: Sixty Bodies Found Near Abeibara, in the Kidal Region