Fighting around the Anéfis military base has become one of the most sustained confrontations in northern Mali since the country’s 2012 rebellion.
The clashes began on 4 July, when fighters from the Front de Libération de l’Azawad and the al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin launched coordinated attacks on several towns at once. Anéfis, Aguelhoc, Gao, Sévaré and Konna were all struck within hours of each other, according to Reuters.
Malian troops and Russia’s Africa Corps beat back the assaults on most fronts. The Anéfis military base, however, held out under siege for several days rather than falling quickly or being cleared outright.
A relief convoy sent from Gao on 5 July to reinforce the Anéfis military base and evacuate wounded soldiers ran into an ambush near the village of Tabrichat, roughly 55 kilometres away. A regional official cited by Reuters said fighters downed an Mi-24 helicopter during that engagement, a detail also recorded by the conflict monitor ACLED.
Héni Nsaibia, ACLED’s senior West Africa analyst, described the fight over the Anéfis military base as a test of whether the FLA-JNIM alliance can reverse one of the Malian government’s most significant gains since late 2023. He noted the battle has evolved into a prolonged confrontation combining guerrilla tactics with more conventional siege warfare, unlike the hit-and-run raids of earlier offensives.
The stakes go beyond one garrison. Anéfis sits at the junction of the two main roads leading into the Kidal region, making it what analysts at the US-based Critical Threats project call the effective gateway to Kidal city, Tessalit and Aguelhoc. Losing the Anéfis military base would leave the remaining Malian position at Aguelhoc dependent on air resupply, cutting it off from reinforcement by road.
Russian forces also introduced new capability during the siege. Critical Threats reported the first recorded use in Mali of Shahed-style Geran attack drones, shipped to Bamako’s forces since May, alongside existing Bayraktar TB2 drones that Malian and Russian units have flown out of Anéfis since capturing the town in November 2023.
By 8 July, the picture had shifted again. Malian and Russian Africa Corps sources said an allied column, made up of FAMa troops, Africa Corps personnel and the Tuareg militia groups GATIA and MSA, had bypassed the mined approach at Tabrichat through the desert and relieved the garrison. Malian soldiers were shown on video raising the national flag over the town, declaring the Anéfis military base back under government control.
Those recapture claims, like the FLA’s earlier assertions of holding the base, have not been independently verified by international wire services, and access to the area remains tightly restricted.
Two senior militant commanders were reported killed during the fighting: Mbareck Ag Akli, the FLA’s first deputy leader, and Abderrahman Zaza, described as a close aide to JNIM’s Iyad Ag Ghali. Both sides have claimed heavy losses against the other.
What makes the battle for the Anéfis military base notable is the alliance behind it. The FLA, a Tuareg-led separatist movement, and JNIM, a jihadist network, were once battlefield rivals in the north. Their cooperation this time points to a corridor war over mobility along the Gao-Tabankort-Anéfis axis, rather than an isolated siege of a single outpost.
For Bamako’s military government, the episode underscores how far its security architecture now rests on Russian paramilitary support. Mali turned to the Africa Corps, successor to the Wagner Group, to help retake Kidal and the surrounding desert after 2023. Whether that partnership can hold the north over the longer term remains the open question the Anéfis military base has forced back into view.
