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<p class="has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-86e7a97af787c43db8fbda7a4a55c6bc" style="color:#1c0505;font-size:14px"><strong>Mali&#8217;s defense minister, General Sadio Camara, has been killed in an apparent suicide truck bombing on his residence near the capital Bamako </strong></p>



<p class="has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-0fe4acf75c8e68a76b4ea322a23437f3" style="color:#1c0505;font-size:14px"><strong>Death of Sadio Camara, part of a wave of coordinated attacks by jihadist militants and separatists carried out across the country on Saturday </strong></p>



<p class="has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-d1c583c21e27dabac2bea3cfb19db198" style="color:#1c0505;font-size:14px"><strong>Early Saturday, militants carried out a suicide car bomb assault on Camara’s residence in Kati, a heavily fortified military town about 9 miles northwest of Bamako</strong></p>



<p class="has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-46672c86ca3d9c8b7401faa5e1240f23" style="color:#1c0505;font-size:14px"><strong>The minister was killed along with his second wife and two of his <strong>grandchildren</strong></strong></p>



<p class="has-text-color has-link-color wp-elements-20e520749faa616b1121557dac2697f9" style="color:#1c0505;font-size:14px"><strong><strong>Camara, a key figure in Mali’s military government, was considered highly influential and his death is seen as a major blow to the country’s armed forces</strong> </strong></p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Sadio-Camara-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-497087" style="width:840px;height:auto"/></figure>



<p class="has-small-font-size"><strong>General Sadio Camara, seen [photo], Mali&#8217;s Defense Minister was killed Saturday in an apparent suicide truck bombing on his residence near the capital Bamako</strong></p>



<p>Mali&#8217;s defense minister has been killed in an apparent suicide truck bombing on his residence at a military garrison near the capital Bamako.<br>Multiple news outlets reported the death of Sadio Camara, part of a wave of coordinated attacks by jihadist militants and separatists carried out across the country.<br>The attackers carried out a suicide car bomb assault on Camara’s residence in Kati, a heavily fortified military town about 9 miles northwest of the capital, Bamako, where President Assimi Goita also lives.<br>Camara’s residence in the garrison town of Kati came under assault on Saturday during simultaneous attacks by an al-Qaeda affiliate and Tuareg rebels, targeting several cities on Saturday as fighting was reported near the international airport in Bamako, in the Kati, a major military base outside the capital, in Gao and Kidal in the north, and the central cities of Sevare and Mopti.<br>The attack led to the collapse of Camara&#8217;s residence and the destruction of a nearby mosque, where a number of worshipers were also killed.<br>Camara exchanged fire with the attackers and &#8220;succeeded in neutralizing some of them.&#8221; However, he was wounded and later died from his injuries in hospital, the statement said l. <br>The defense minister&#8217;s second wife and two of his grandchildren were also killed in the attack on his home.<br>State TV confirming the minister&#8217;s death several hours later, said he died of wounds received while engaging with the attackers. Government spokesman Issa Ousmane Coulibaly read out a statement on Sunday evening saying Camara was killed when &#8220;a vehicle laden with explosives and driven by a suicide attacker targeted the minister&#8217;s residence&#8221;. <br>Camara, a key figure in Mali’s military government, was considered highly influential, and his death is seen as a major blow to the country’s armed forces.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Sadio-Camara-left-Sergey-Lavrov-center-and-Abdoulaye-Diop-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-497085" style="width:840px;height:auto"/></figure>



<p class="has-small-font-size"><strong>Sadio Camara, seen [left], with the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov [center], and his Malian counterpart, Abdoulaye Diop, a key figure in Mali’s military government, was considered highly influential. His death is seen as a major blow to the country’s armed forces</strong></p>



<p>The wave of suicide bombings followed by gunfire was still ongoing by Sunday although state TV claims Mali&#8217;s military has neutralized the militants and reclaimed control. <br>In the wake of the assault, the head of the military junta, Gen Assimi Goita, has been moved to a safe location after his home was targeted. <br>Further north Russian mercenaries hired by Mali&#8217;s military agreed to withdraw from Kidal after two days of clashes, the separatist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) group said.<br>For years, Mali has been plagued by insurgencies by groups affiliated with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, and the FLA.<br>Reports suggest the assault by the separatists, whose goal is a breakaway ethnic Tuareg state in the north of Mali, was primarily focused on northern cities, while the jihadist group Jama&#8217;at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) had staged simultaneous attacks on multiple locations across the country, in what was described as the &#8220;largest co-ordinated jihadist attack on Mali for years&#8221;.<br>FLA spokesman Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane said Kidal had &#8220;not fallen completely&#8221; during those attacks, at the time. The militants he said, remained in the city because &#8220;elements of the Malian army and Russian mercenaries&#8221; were still present.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full is-resized"><img src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Fighting-between-the-FLA-Malian-army-and-Russian-mercenaries-1.png" alt="" class="wp-image-497086" style="aspect-ratio:1.784421758030079;width:840px;height:auto"/></figure>



<p class="has-small-font-size"><strong>Fighting between the FLA, Malian army and Russian mercenaries continued on Sunday in Kati and Kidal</strong></p>



<p>On Sunday, clashes between the FLA and the Malian government resumed in Kidal.<br>Shortly after these reports, Ramadane said: &#8220;An agreement was reached between the Azawad forces and the Russian elements of the Africa Corps with a view to ensuring their secure withdrawal from the fighting.&#8221;<br>In later updates, he said they were &#8220;permanently withdrawing from Kidal&#8221; and &#8220;Kidal is now free&#8221;.<br>There has been no confirmation of these claims from Mali&#8217;s military.<br>Russian personnel were responding along with units of Mali’s presidential guard and armed forces, preventing the presidential palace from being seized.<br>Russian state-run broadcaster Vesti reported on Sunday that Russia’s Africa Corps was repelling a large-scale militant attack on Mali’s government. <br>The FLA also claims to have taken control of the city, which served as an unofficial headquarters of the separatist movement for more than a decade before it was captured by Mali&#8217;s army with the help of Russian mercenaries in late 2023.<br>An FLA field commander involved in the assault on Kidal revealed that the group had been preparing for the offensive &#8220;for months&#8221;, adding: &#8220;Our main goal now is to control Gao and then Timbuktu will be easy to fall.&#8221;<br>State broadcaster ORTM reporting injuries to 16 people, including civilians and soldiers, were injured in the attacks, said several &#8220;terrorists&#8221; had been killed as Mali&#8217;s military restored order .<br>However, despite reports that the situation is &#8220;completely under control&#8221; in all affected areas, the military confirmed fighting was continuing in Kidal, as well as Kati and other parts of the country.</p>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><img src="https://konniemoments.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/Fighting-between-the-FLA-Malian-army-and-Russian-mercenaries-4.png" alt="" class="wp-image-497101"/></figure>



<p class="has-small-font-size"><strong>Armed men are a common sight as gunshots ring out on streets of Kati and Kidal</strong></p>



<p>The FLA has for years been fighting for the creation of its own Tuareg homeland in northern Mali, a large swathe of which it has effective control over.<br>Mali is currently ruled by a military government led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who first seized power in a coup in 2020, promising to restore security and push back armed groups.<br>The current leadership had popular support when it took power, promising to deal with the long-running security crisis prompted by the Tuareg rebellion in the north, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants.<br>With the departure of UN peacekeepers and French forces after the Mali&#8217;s military staged their coup, the military government hired Russian mercenaries to help tackle the insecurity.</p>

Mali defense minister, Gen. Sadio Camara, killed in suicide truck bombing, as country is hit by wave of rebel attacks across multiple cities
