Wagner played a prominent role in some of the fiercest fighting of Russia’s war in Ukraine
Mali’s northern Tuareg rebels said they had killed and injured dozens of soldiers and Wagner mercenaries in two days of fighting near the Algerian border, after the army said it had lost two soldiers but killed some 20 rebels.
The rebel movement, the Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD), said in a statement on Saturday that it had seized armoured vehicles, trucks and tankers in the fighting at the border town of Tinzaouaten on Thursday and Friday.
The rebel group also said it damaged a helicopter, which crashed in the town of Kidal, hundreds of kilometres away.
The Malian army said in statements that two soldiers had been killed and 10 injured. One of its helicopters had crashed in Kidal on Friday while on a routine mission but no one was killed, it said.
Several Russian military bloggers reported on Sunday that at least 20 from the Wagner group were killed in an ambush near the Algerian border.
“Employees of the Wagner PMC (Group), who were moving in a convoy with government troops, were killed in Mali … Some were captured,” said a prominent Russian military blogger Semyon Pegov, who uses the name War Gonzo.
The Baza Telegram news channel, which has links to Russia’s security structures, reported that at least 20 Wagner fighters have been killed.
Reuters could not independently verify the bloggers’ reports.
The CSP said in another statement on Sunday that it had fought and defeated a Malian army batallion backed by Wagner. It said the enemy had been “annihilated” and that the few soldiers and mercenaries who survived the fighting had been taken prisoner.
Seven of its fighters were killed and 12 injured, it added.
Wagner played a prominent role in some of the fiercest fighting of Russia’s war in Ukraine but its future was thrown into question when its leader Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in August, two months after leading a brief mutiny against the Russian defence establishment.
Mali, where military authorities seized power in coups in 2020 and 2021, is battling a years-long insurgency. It has said Russian forces there are not Wagner mercenaries but trainers helping local troops with equipment bought from Russia.
Baza’s report said on Sunday that Wagner fighters have been in Mali since at least 2021.
The Tuareg are an ethnic group who inhabit the Sahara region, including parts of northern Mali. Many of them feel marginalised by the Malian government.
The separatist group launched an insurgency against Mali’s junta government in 2012 but the rebellion was later hijacked by other groups.
It signed a peace agreement with Bamako in 2015, but CSP-PSD pulled out of the talks at the end of 2022.