Brief: Tuareg Separatists Intensify Attacks Against Russian Africa Corps

Executive Summary:

• The Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), a Tuareg separatist group formed in December 2024, has intensified attacks on the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and their Russian Africa Corps allies. As the FAMa and Africa Corps struggle to contain the insurgency, the FLA may position itself as an acceptable local power for external actors, particularly if the ongoing conflict with Islamist groups escalates.
• FLA attacks underscore the vulnerability of Russia’s Africa Corps, which is increasingly embroiled in a multi-front insurgency.
• Though ideologically distinct, the FLA and jihadist group JNIM share enemies and have staged sequential attacks, raising concerns about tacit or future coordination, especially given shared Tuareg roots and Iyad ag Ghaly’s leadership.

Since June, the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) has been intensifying attacks on the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and Africa Corps, the Russian government mercenaries who assist them. In one battle north of the town of Aguelhoc in northeastern Mali on June 13–14, both the FLA and FAMa claimed to have inflicted significant losses on the other. The FAMa added that the situation was “fully under control” (African Press Agency, June 14).

Images that emerged after the Aguelhoc battle indicated the FLA likely disrupted a FAMa-Africa Corps convoy. The convoy, whose mission included building a new airstrip in Aguelhoc, managed to keep going. Both sides appeared to have suffered losses (X/@Djvou_djousako, June 16; Defense Archives, July 7). In addition, a Russian SU-24 crashed within two days of the Aguelhoc battle, forcing two Russian pilots to eject near the city of Gao, some 200 miles to the south. There is some doubt over whether the FLA was responsible (The Africa Report, June 17). This incident highlighted the risks for the Russian contingent embroiled in intense counter-insurgency operations in Mali, where attacks by the FLA and other groups like Group for Supporters of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) or Islamic State–Greater Sahara (IS–GS) remain an ever-present threat.

Aguelhoc is a remote town near the borders with Algeria and Niger. This is not the first time this region has seen intense violence between separatist groups and the FAMa. In 2012, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), a predecessor to the FLA, massacred Malian troops after they returned across the Libyan border following the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi (Al Jazeera, April 24, 2013).

The FLA itself was formed in December 2024 during a meeting between the Permanent Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad (CSP-DPA), a coalition of Tuareg separatist armed groups (Jeune Afrique, December 1, 2024). Since then, the FLA has emerged as a serious insurgent threat. The combined force of the FLA, JNIM, and IS–GS is severely overextending the FAMa and causing serious damage to the FAMa and Africa Corps, further complicating the security situation in the country.

The fact that JNIM and the FLA share the same enemies—FAMa and Africa Corps—provides grounds for the groups to ally. This is the case despite the disparity between the FLA’s ethnic Tuareg separatism and JNIM’s jihadism, which aims to establish government by shari’ah throughout the Sahel region (Jeune Afrique, May 26). The groups have conducted ambushes against the FAMa and Africa Corps in close succession, suggesting possible coordination (X/@brantphilip, July 19). JNIM’s leader, Iyad ag Ghaly, was formerly a Tuareg ethnic militant in the 1990s before undergoing jihadist radicalization. This raises concerns that Ghaly could be open to negotiations and attempts to bridge the ethnic-jihadist ideological divide between the FLA and JNIM in pursuit of future cooperation (Counter Extremism Project, accessed August 19).

Despite this prospect, both groups are succeeding in their campaigns against Malian security forces and their Russian allies already, and do not require each other’s expertise or resources to continue operating. In fact, a turf war between militant groups over territory currently seems more plausible. The FLA’s media apparatus is revealing a group as confident as ever, demonstrated by the effectiveness of their drone attacks against the Africa Corps, despite the latter’s employment of drone jammers (TANAKRA NEWS, July 27). If Mali were to collapse any further, the FLA—as the more acceptable alternative for most regional and international actors—could in turn seek external support (whether overtly or covertly) to counter JNIM and IS–GS in northern Mali.