Multiple explosions targeted an airport and adjoining military base in central Mali on Saturday, killing at least 9 civilians and injuring over 60 others.
The base in the town of Sevare houses Russian troops, which Malian opponents say belong to the Wagner mercenary group.
"It is the Russian camp and their planes that have been targeted — the camp is near the airport," a local elected official told the French AFP news agency.
Witnesses reported four large explosions and then ongoing automatic weapons fire. In all, the attack lasted some two-and-a-half hours.
One military official told AFP that the base had been targeted in "a complex attack that required a booby-trapped vehicle and guerilla techniques."
Mali's army has since regained control of the area. Senegalese soldiers from the UN's MINUSMA peacekeeping mission were reportedly involved in the fighting, too. The UN base is located directly next the airport and the base housing the Russian mercenaries.
No group has responsibility for the attack. But Malian jihadis are known to operate in the area.
This is the largest attack on the base this year, the Associated Press news agency said, though not the first.
Russian mercenaries in Mali
Mali is battling an Islamist insurgency that took root after a 2012 uprising and has since spread to neighboring countries, killing thousands and displacing millions across West Africa's Sahel region.
The Wagner Group began supplying hundreds of fighters in 2021 to support the Malian military and has since been accused by human rights groups and local residents of taking part in massacres of civilians — allegations it has not responded to.
Their deployment was a key factor in prompting France, Mali's former colonial power and traditional ally, to pull its military forces out of the country.
The Russian government has acknowledged Wagner personnel are in Mali but the Malian government has described them as instructors from the Russian military rather than private security contractors.