Al-Zallaqa, the media arm of al-Qaeda’s subsidiary in the African Sahel, Jama’at Nusrat Al-Islam Wal-Muslimeen (JNIM), claims it carried out a “precise” attack in which its fighters fired mortars at Timbuktu Military airport in Mali where it would have caused an unknown number of victims, including members of the Russian Wagner mercenary group. The installations They have become “a haven” for the Russian Wagner group and “the soldiers of the collaborator (Mali’s interim president Assimi Goïta),” he adds.
The terrorists recently released several statements accusing the Wagners of massacring Muslim civilians in Mali with the help of the Malian government and military. In 2018, JNIM claimed responsibility for a major attack on French and international forces at Timbuktu Airport, Memri reports.
The deployment of Russian mercenaries in the Sahel, where they plan to act as “gendarmes” to replace retreating western forces, has been the subject of much controversy due to their brutal methods and indiscriminate attacks on the population, who are widely accused of supporting them jihadists. According to some experts, the effect is that young people are encouraged to join terrorist groups.
