Kangaba attack

Last updated

Kangaba attack
Location Kangaba, Mali
Coordinates 12°36′54″N7°51′53″W / 12.61489°N 7.86481°W / 12.61489; -7.86481
Date18 June 2017
TargetLe Campement Kangaba
Attack type
Hostage taking
Deaths5

On 18 June 2017, gunmen attacked Le Campement Kangaba in Dougourakoro, east of Bamako, Mali, a luxury resort frequented by tourists. Hostages were reported to have been taken and at least 5 people are reported to have been killed, including a Franco-Gabonese civilian, a Chinese citizen and a Portuguese soldier. [1] According to an eyewitness, the attack began when a man on a motorcycle arrived at the compound and fired at the crowd. He was followed by two other assailants. [2] Security forces stationed at the resort held off the attack for several hours while awaiting reinforcements. [3] Once arrived, the United Nations troops managed to rescue around 60 people staying at the resort. [4] Some residents hid in a cave near the resort and managed to avoid the attackers.[ citation needed ]

Contents

Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin claimed responsibility for the attack, and Mali security minister Salif Traoré confirmed it was a jihadist attack. Malian troops and France's Operation Barkhane counter-terrorist force came to the site. Four assailants were killed in the aftermath and four arrested. [5]

Aftermath

Casualties

Deaths by nationality
CountryNumber
Flag of Mali.svg Mali1
Flag of France.svg France/Flag of Mali.svg Mali1
Flag of France.svg France/Flag of Gabon.svg Gabon1
Flag of the People's Republic of China.svg China1
Flag of Portugal.svg Portugal1
Total5

Decorations

Spanish Army Commander Miguel Angel Franco Fernandez was awarded the European Union's Common Security and Defence Policy Service Medal for his efforts in defending the civilians at the hotel. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tuareg rebellion (2007–2009)</span> Tuareg insurgency in Mali and Niger

The 2007-2009 Tuareg rebellion was an insurgency that began in February 2007 amongst elements of the Tuareg people living in the Sahara desert regions of northern Mali and Niger. It is one of a series of insurgencies by formerly nomadic Tuareg populations, which had last appeared in the mid-1990s, and date back at least to 1916. Populations dispersed to Algeria and Libya, as well as to the south of Niger and Mali in the 1990s returned only in the late 1990s. Former fighters were to be integrated into national militaries, but the process has been slow and caused increased resentment. Malian Tuaregs had conducted some raids in 2005–2006, which ended in a renewed peace agreement. Fighting in both nations was carried on largely in parallel, but not in concert. While fighting was mostly confined to guerrilla attacks and army counterattacks, large portions of the desert north of each nation were no-go zones for the military and civilians fled to regional capitals like Kidal, Mali and Agadez, Niger. Fighting was largely contained within Mali's Kidal Region and Niger's Agadez Region. Algeria helped negotiate an August 2008 Malian peace deal, which was broken by a rebel faction in December, crushed by the Malian military and wholescale defections of rebels to the government. Niger saw heavy fighting and disruption of uranium production in the mountainous north, before a Libyan backed peace deal, aided by a factional split among the rebels, brought a negotiated ceasefire and amnesty in May 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Insurgency in the Maghreb (2002–present)</span> Sunni Islamic insurgency in the Maghreb

An Islamist insurgency is taking place in the Maghreb region of North Africa, followed on from the end of the Algerian Civil War in 2002. The Algerian militant group Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) allied itself with al-Qaeda to eventually become al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The Algerian and other Maghreb governments fighting the militants have worked with the United States and the United Kingdom since 2007, when Operation Enduring Freedom – Trans Sahara began.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mali War</span> Armed conflict in Mali that started in January 2012

The Mali War is an ongoing conflict that started in January 2012 between the northern and southern parts of Mali in Africa. On 16 January 2012, several insurgent groups began fighting a campaign against the Malian government for independence or greater autonomy for northern Mali, which they called Azawad. The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), an organization fighting to make this area of Mali an independent homeland for the Tuareg people, had taken control of the region by April 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali</span> Peacekeeping force in Mali after the Tuareg rebellion of 2012

The United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali was a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali. MINUSMA was established on 25 April 2013 by United Nations Security Council Resolution 2100 to stabilise the country after the Tuareg rebellion of 2012, and was terminated over a decade later on 30 June 2023. Officially deployed on 1 July 2013, MINUSMA was the UN's second-most dangerous peacekeeping mission after Lebanon, with 304 peacekeepers killed out of a force of about 15,200 as of May 2023.

Al-Mourabitoun was an African militant jihadist organization formed by a merger between Ahmed Ould Amer, a.k.a. Ahmed al-Tilemsi's Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa and Mokhtar Belmokhtar's Al-Mulathameen. On 4 December 2015, it joined Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The group sought to implement Sharia law in Mali, Algeria, southwestern Libya, and Niger.

In an attack on March 7, 2015, five people were shot dead and nine wounded in a restaurant on a busy street of Bamako, the capital of Mali. Two of those killed were Malians, and the others French and Belgian respectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2015 Bamako hotel attack</span> Terrorist attack in Radisson Blu, Bamako

On 20 November 2015, Islamist militants took 170 hostages and killed 20 of them in a mass shooting at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. US Army Sergeant First Class Kyle Morgan, a member of the Combat Applications Group, the DOD SMU commonly referred to as Delta Force, along with the assistance of GySgt Jared Stout, a MARSOC CSO that worked out of the same embassy as Morgan, launched an assault with Malian Security Forces on the hotel to recover the surviving hostages. Al-Mourabitoun claimed that it carried out the attack "in cooperation with" al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb; an al Qaeda member confirmed that the two groups cooperated in the attack.

A MINUSMA base in Kidal, northern Mali, was attacked on 28 November 2015. Two Guinean soldiers and a Burkinabe contractor were killed, with 20 more injured. Ansar Dine claimed responsibility for the attack.

More than 30 rockets and shells struck a MINUSMA base in Kidal, northern Mali, early on 8 March 2015. One United Nations peacekeeper from Chad was killed, as were two Malian children killed when a shell fell on a nearby camp of Tuareg and Arab nomads, according to the UN. Eleven more peacekeepers and three more civilians were reportedly injured. The rockets and shells were apparently launched from both the north and the south of the base. It was not immediately clear who carried out the attack, but Islamist militants active in the area or Tuareg separatists were suspected.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grand-Bassam shootings</span> Terrorist attack in Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast on 13 March 2016

On 13 March 2016, three Islamist gunmen opened fire at a beach resort in Grand-Bassam, Ivory Coast, killing at least 19 people and injuring 33 others.

The 2016 Nampala attack was an armed assault against a Malian Army base in the Niono Cercle subdivision of the Ségou Region of Mali on 19 July 2016, that left at least 17 government soldiers dead and 35 others injured. The Katiba Macina, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and the ethnic Fula militant group National Alliance for the Protection of Fulani Identity and the Restoration of Justice (ANSIPRJ) claimed joint responsibility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ogossagou massacre</span> Attacks against Fulani herders in central Mali

On March 23, 2019, several attacks by gunmen killed a reported 160 Fulani herders in central Mali. The violence came in the aftermath of the Malian government cracking down on Islamic terror cells in the country. Two villages, Ogossagou and Welingara, were particularly affected.

Protests in Mali began on 5 June 2020 when protesters gathered in the streets of Bamako, calling for Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta to resign as president of Mali. The protests ended after a coup d'état on 18 August 2020. Both the president and prime minister of Mali were detained that afternoon, and in the evening they announced their resignations.

Events in the year 2021 in Mali.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jihadist insurgency in Niger</span> Civil conflict in Niger

Since 2015, the border area between Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger has been a hotbed for jihadist forces originating from Mali. The insurgency has taken place in two distinct regions of Niger. In southwest, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and the Nusrat al-Islam have carried out attacks in the tri-border area with Burkina Faso and Mali. Meanwhile, in the southeast, the Islamic State in the West African Province has established control in parts of southern Niger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Islamist insurgency in the Sahel</span> Insurgency throughout the Sahel and West Africa

An Islamist insurgency has been ongoing in the Sahel region of West Africa since the 2011 Arab Spring. In particular, the intensive conflict in the three countries of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso has been referred to as the Sahel War.

Events in the year 2022 in Mali.

Events in the year 2023 in Mali.

On January 2, 2023, militants from Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin attacked the villages of Markacoungo and Kassela, on the Bamako-Ségou highway, killing five civilians. The attack was the first by JNIM in the Bamako area in months.

References

  1. "At least two killed in terror attack on luxury resort in Mali". The Independent. 18 June 2017. Retrieved 19 June 2017.
  2. "Armed men storm resort in Malian capital Bamako". Al Jazeera. 19 June 2017. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  3. "Comandante Franco: la secuencia de cómo un hombre se enfrentó a los yihadistas en bañador". El Español (in European Spanish). 9 March 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2020.
  4. "Al Qaeda-linked group claims deadly attack at Mali resort". Reuters. 18 June 2017.
  5. "Mali attack: Gunmen kill five at tourist resort". BBC. 19 June 2017. Retrieved 21 June 2017.
  6. "Comandante Franco: la secuencia de cómo un hombre se enfrentó a los yihadistas en bañador". El Español (in European Spanish). 9 March 2018. Retrieved 4 May 2020.