Fighting continued Monday morning for the capture of the Anefis camp in northern Mali, where Russian paramilitaries and some Malian soldiers are entrenched, two days after a vast coordinated offensive across the country led by a coalition of Tuareg separatists and jihadists.

Jihadists from the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), affiliated with Al-Qaeda, and separatists from the ALF (Azawad Liberation Front), carried out new attacks from north to south of the country on Saturday morning, a little over two months after a major offensive in which they took the strategic city of Kidal (northeast) and killed the Minister of Defense.

The FLA has been claiming control of the town of Anéfis (north) since Saturday morning, which is crucial for securing its hold on Kidal, located about a hundred kilometers away.

However, Russian paramilitaries from the Africa Corps and some Malian soldiers are still holed up inside a camp and fighting continued on Monday morning, according to the army.

"This morning, the rebels and their JNIM allies launched shells towards the camp where Russian fighters from Africa Corps and Malian army soldiers are entrenched. Last night, reports emerged of the use of kamikaze drones by the Russians," a security source told AFP.

A local official told AFP that reinforcements from the FLA arrived in Anéfis early Monday morning in several dozen armed vehicles.

A convoy of the Malian army, which had set out from the city of Gao further south to provide assistance to the paramilitaries entrenched in the Anéfis camp, had to turn back on Sunday after being targeted by the FLA.

"The reinforcement that left Gao to support Russian troops and the Malian army fell into an ambush a few kilometers from Anéfis" before "turning back", according to another security source.

"Between five and eight military vehicles" were destroyed during the ambush, according to Wamaps, a collective of West African journalists specializing in security issues in the Sahel.

At least one army helicopter was also destroyed, according to local and security sources.

According to residents contacted by AFP, the convoy returned to Gao on Sunday evening.

Mali has been gripped by a deep security crisis since 2012, fueled in particular by violence from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS), as well as by community-based criminal groups. This is compounded by a severe economic crisis.

Since two successive coups in 2020 and 2021, Mali has been led by military men who came to power on the promise of restoring security and preserving the territorial integrity of this vast desert country plagued by a jihadist insurgency and the separatist claims of Tuareg groups.