About fifty members of the Russian mercenary Wagner paramilitary were killed in an attack by jihadists and rebels in the north of Mali in Africa, with at least two captured, and this, according to one analyst, is the biggest defeat on the battlefield that this secretive formation has experienced in recent years on this area.
The Wagners were riding in a convoy along the Mali-Algeria border last weekend when they were ambushed by members of Al Qaeda, allied with local rebels, said Wasim Nasr, a specialist in the sub-Saharan Sahel region who works for the Sufan Center security think tank.
Nasr counted about fifty victims from one video that shows the consequences of the attack.
Wagner's mercenaries fought Tuareg rebels together with the Malian army. The mercenary convoy was then forced to retreat and then entered territory controlled by Al-Qaeda jihadists, where it was ambushed, Nasr said.
Vagner confirmed via Telegram that part of his fighters were killed together with Malian soldiers in a battle with hundreds of armed fighters.
The mercenary group did not say how many men it lost in the battle.
Mali's army said it lost two soldiers and killed 20 rebels.
Al Qaeda said over the weekend that it had killed 50 members of Wagner "in revenge for the massacres they committed" in central and northern Mali during years of fighting with the extremists.
The Taurek rebels announced that an unspecified number of mercenaries and Malian soldiers had surrendered to them.
The Associated Press has not yet been able to verify the video Nasr is referring to.
"This is really important. It has never happened before on African soil, and it will change the dynamic," Nasr said, adding: "They (Wagner) will no longer send riotous expeditions like this to the border with Algeria. They boasted how well they are doing and how strong they are, but they don't have the manpower to do this for long or to hold the territory to ensure deployment of forces".
Russia gained political capital from the deterioration of the West's relations with the three countries of the sub-Saharan Sahel region where military coups broke out, so it sent fighters there and strengthened its influence.
Wagner is active in the Sahel, and mercenaries profit from seized mineral wealth in exchange for security services they provide to coup governments.
Wagner has been present in Mali since late 2021, when a coup broke out there, replacing French soldiers and international peacekeepers in the fight against jihadists and insurgents who have been attacking the population in the central and northern parts of the country for more than 10 years.
It is estimated that Wagner has around 1.000 fighters in Mali. The formation is accused of aiding drone attacks that kill civilians.
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