A Malian army convoy departing the recently recaptured northern town of Anefis for Gao was ambushed on Saturday morning near Tabankort, in the Gao region. The attack was immediately claimed as a joint operation by the Tuareg separatist Front de Libération de l’Azawad (FLA) and the al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM). The Malian armed forces confirmed the ambush in a statement, acknowledging that a “counterattack is underway” without providing casualty figures.

FLA spokesperson Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane told international media that the group had attacked a convoy of around fifty vehicles, killing a large number of soldiers, capturing others alive, and seizing military vehicles including armoured cars. The group released videos purportedly showing captured soldiers and militants firing on men lying on the ground. JNIM issued a separate statement describing “great human losses” and “serious material damage” inflicted on the Malian army and its Russian partners from Africa Corps. A Malian military source in Gao, speaking to Agence France-Presse, described the incident as an ambush and said fighting was ongoing, while a security official acknowledged “heavy losses” but noted that the remainder of the convoy was able to continue its journey.

Russian military-linked media offered a different account of events in the same area. The news agency Atlasinfo reported that an Africa Corps attack drone had eliminated a group of FLA fighters at Tabrichat, approximately 30 kilometres north of Tarkint, as they attempted to set an ambush. The report, citing Russian sources, claimed that drone strikes had destroyed two vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, five pick-up trucks, and around thirty opposing fighters, forcing allied forces to temporarily regroup. These competing narratives could not be independently verified, but they highlight the difficulty of establishing a single operational picture in a remote desert theatre where both sides seek to control the information space.

The ambush is the latest in a series of coordinated attacks by the FLA and JNIM, whose tactical cooperation has deepened in recent months. In early July, the same coalition briefly seized Anefis, besieging the military garrison before Malian troops and Russian paramilitaries retook the town on 10 July after days of intense fighting and airstrikes. The official toll from that earlier battle, released by the Malian general staff on 12 July, listed around 30 soldiers killed and 60 wounded. The convoy attacked on Saturday was likely a logistics resupply mission, as images showed fuel tankers among the vehicles. Viewed from Bamako, the ambush represents a direct challenge to the junta’s efforts to secure the north with Russian support. Security analysts in the Sahel note that the growing collaboration between separatist and jihadist groups, while ideologically distinct, is driven by a shared objective of expelling state forces and their foreign allies from the Azawad region, complicating an already volatile security landscape. The Malian military has not yet released a full casualty report, and the situation around Tabankort remains fluid as counter-operations continue.