Mali: An Ambush Claims Over Fifty Wagner Fighters’ Lives

Over the course of the weekend, jihadis and rebels in northern Mali killed dozens of Wagner mercenaries, in what one expert on Monday called the biggest battlefield defeat to the mysterious Russian group in years. Two others were taken prisoner at least.

Along the Algerian border, an al-Qaida ambush killed about fifty Wagner fighters in a convoy. The ambush was followed by pursuing rebels, according to Wassim Nasr, a Sahel expert and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, a security think tank. Nasr claimed to have counted bodies in a video of the aftermath.

According to Nasr, the mercenaries were fighting with Mali’s army, primarily against Tuareg rebels, when their convoy was forced to flee into jihadi territory and was ambushed south of the commune of Tinzaouaten.

Wagner acknowledged that some of its members and Malian troops perished in a combat with hundreds of extremists in a Telegram statement on Monday. The number of fighters lost by the mercenary organization was not disclosed. The Mali army reported that 20 rebels were slain and two soldiers were lost.