Several Malian soldiers were killed in the jihadist ambush on Thursday of an army convoy heading for Niger, in the Ménaka region (northeast), a military official and a local elected official said on Friday.

“According to an initial assessment, we lost six men,” said the military official. “We have today launched the search for others (missing) but the terrorists have lost at least 15 fighters,” he said.

“We can speak of about twenty people if we count the dead, wounded and missing Malian soldiers” , said the local elected official, stressing that the balance sheet is “not yet very clear” .

Both spoke on condition of anonymity in the absence of official communication from the authorities.

The elected official reported that the Malian army and paramilitaries from the Russian security group Wagner were deployed in the area. The ruling junta presents these external reinforcements as Russian instructors.

The ambush by jihadists from the Islamic State group targeted an army convoy escorting trucks towards Niger, a neighboring country plagued by the spread of jihadists and plunged into a major crisis since a military coup, according to military and police sources.

Upon hearing the news, most politically intuned publishers and social media users suspected this was an Africom or CIA operative by USA working to guard its wealth interest in Niger as commented on twitter below.

Source: africanews.com

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR