Before sunrise on Saturday, a car filled with explosives drove into the home of Mali's defense minister, General Sadio Camara. The attack killed Camara, his second wife, and two of his grandchildren in Kati, a garrison town near the capital. His death marked the beginning of a historic day for Mali.
At the same time, gunfire and explosions erupted in five other cities: Bamako, Sévaré, Mopti, Gao, and Kidal. Flights were cancelled at Modibo Keita International Airport. Mali was under coordinated attack from north to south.
What made this morning truly historic was the alliance behind the attacks. For years, two armed groups had fought Mali's military government separately. JNIM, an al-Qaeda-affiliated jihadist coalition led by Iyad Ag Ghali, has dominated the Sahel region since 2017. The Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg separatist movement, seeks autonomy for the north. On Saturday, these two groups attacked together for the first time, sharing the same battle plan.
JNIM struck Bamako and several other cities, while the FLA focused on Kidal. Within hours, the FLA declared control of Kidal. Malian forces, including Russian mercenaries from Africa Corps, withdrew. This reversed a major victory from November 2023, when the same forces had recaptured the city from rebels.
General Camara was a central architect of Mali's shift away from France toward Russia after the 2020 and 2021 coups. His death inside Kati struck at the heart of the government he helped build. Though Bamako remained under government control, the symbolic damage was severe.