# Mali says defence minister is killed as rebels seize Kidal and intensify challenge to junta
Mali’s military government is facing its gravest security crisis in years after jihadists and allied Tuareg separatists seized the key northern town of Kidal and a suicide car bomb killed Defence Minister Sadio Camara in Kati, according to reporting from AFP via France 24.
The weekend offensive, launched against strategic junta positions, has shaken confidence in the ruling authorities and raised fresh questions about the state’s control outside the capital. Local sources said the insurgent coalition overran Kidal after coordinated attacks, forcing soldiers and their Russian mercenary backers to withdraw from the town. Residents told AFP they saw the retreat unfold as the assault gathered pace.
Camara, a 47-year-old key figure in the junta, died on Saturday when a car bomb struck his home in Kati. The military government also said his second wife and two grandchildren were killed. Officials declared two days of national mourning for the minister, whose death marked one of the most damaging blows yet to the junta led by General Assimi Goita.
Prime Minister Abdoulaye Maiga sought to project control, telling a press conference that lessons would be learned and security improved. But the report says Goita had not been seen or heard publicly since the fighting began, while a security source said he was in a safe place. That uncertainty added to the sense of fragility around the government as the clashes continued.
The assault on Kidal matters not only because of the town’s strategic position, but because it has long carried symbolic weight in Mali’s conflict. Kidal was held for years by rebel groups before being retaken in 2023 in an army offensive backed by Wagner Group fighters. Its loss again points to the limits of the junta’s counterinsurgency strategy in the north.
The crisis is broader than a single town. The offensive also hit areas near Bamako, including a dawn attack on Saturday that the report says involved both the Azawad Liberation Front and the Al-Qaeda-linked Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, or JNIM. Two loud blasts were later heard near the airport on the capital’s outskirts.
The military said it had killed more than 200 “terrorists” and that 16 civilians and soldiers were wounded, but it had not updated the toll by the time of the report. Opposition figures said the country was in danger and argued that the junta had failed to deliver the security and stability it promised after taking power.
For Mali, the immediate issue is whether the state can hold its remaining ground in the north and around the capital. The wider concern is that the latest fighting could further weaken a government already under pressure from a decade of violence, a fractured military landscape and the continued presence of armed groups able to strike high-value targets.
