| November 2015 Kidal attack | |
|---|---|
| Part of Northern Mali conflict | |
| Location | Mali |
| Date | 28 November 2015 |
| Deaths | 3 |
| Injured | 20 |
| Perpetrators |  Ansar Dine (claimed responsibility) |
A MINUSMA base in Kidal, northern Mali, was attacked on 28 November 2015. [1] Two Guinean soldiers and a Burkinabe contractor were killed, with 20 more injured. [2] Ansar Dine claimed responsibility for the attack.
Following the Libyan Civil War, Tuaregs fighting in the Libyan Arab Republic's Libyan army fled to northern Mali with weapons. The ensuing insurgency quickly led to the self-declared independence and consequent armed Islamist insurgency by MOJWA and Ansar Dine against the secular MNLA. This led to Operation Serval by France.
The UN base in Kidal was targeted in March as well, resulting in the deaths of two children and a Chadian peacekeeper. [3] In the days preceding the November 2015 attack, the Radisson Blu was attacked in Mali's capital, Bamako. The attack was claimed by three Islamist militant groups — al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, its splinter group, the secular named al Mourabitoun and Massina Liberation Front. [4]
MINUSMA has had over 50 deaths, making it the most fatal UN mission since the 1993-95 UNOSOM II in Somalia. [5]
According to MINUSMA spokesman Olivier Salgado, the attack happened in Kidal at about 04:00 when "four or five rockets landed inside the base." [6] After the rockets landed, bursts of gunfire occurred. Mortar fire also emanated from inside the camp. [7] At least 2 Guinean troops and a civilian contractor were killed, 14 others were wounded.[ citation needed ] The camp had received a warning two days before the attack from an unnamed Islamist group. A local government official, Ahmoudene Ag Ikmasse, blamed radical Islamists. [7]
Ansar Dine claimed responsibility for the attack. [8]
MINUSMA chief Mongi Hamdi issued a statement that read the attacks "would not dent the determination of the UN to support the Malian people and the peace process, including assisting in the implementation of the Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation in Mali." [5] The UN issued a statement that read: "The members of the Security Council called on the Government of Mali to swiftly investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice, and stressed that those responsible for the attack should be held accountable" and that it may constitute war crimes. [7]
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.
The 2012 Tuareg rebellion was the early phase of the Mali War; from January to April 2012, a war was waged against the Malian government by rebels with the goal of attaining independence for the northern region of Mali, known as Azawad. It was led by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and was part of a series of insurgencies by traditionally nomadic Tuaregs which date back at least to 1916. The MNLA was formed by former insurgents and a significant number of heavily armed Tuaregs who fought in the Libyan Civil War.
The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad or the Azawad National Liberation Movement, formerly the National Movement of Azawad, is a militant organization based in northern Mali.
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.
The following is a timeline of major events during the Northern Mali conflict.
Operation Panther was a French military operation in Mali that was launched in February 2013.
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.
The following is a list of events that occurred in 2015 in Mali.
The Katibat Macina, also known as the Macina Liberation Movement or Macina Liberation Front, is a militant Islamist group that operates in Mali. It is an affiliate of Ansar Dine.
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.
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.
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.
On 14 April 2018, militants attacked the MINUSMA base in Timbuktu Airport, known informally as the "super camp". The JNIM later claimed responsibility for the attack, in reprisal for the deaths of some of their commanders in clashes that occurred about a week earlier.
Events in the year 2021 in Mali.
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.
The 2019 Aguelhok attack was an attack by Jama'at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin against the MINUSMA base in Aguelhok, Mali on January 20, 2019. At the time of the attack, the base was defended by Chadian and Bengali peacekeepers, and was later aided by French forces part of Operation Barkhane.
On December 14, 2013, Katibat Salahadin militants attacked Senegalese peacekeepers and Malian soldiers in the city of Kidal. Residents of Kidal stated that the attack was one of the most destructive since the beginning of the Mali War.
On October 23, 2013, Katiba Salahadin militants attacked Chadian peacekeepers in the city of Tessalit, sparking a battle between the militants and Chadian and French forces. The attack was the first attack by jihadists targeting MINUSMA peacekeepers during the Mali War.