SEPARATISTS in northern Mali joined Islamist militants in launching one of the biggest co-ordinated attacks on the Malian army in the capital Bamako and several other cities at the weekend, leaving at least 16 people wounded.

For the first time, Tuareg-led separatist organisation the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) said it had operated alongside al-Qaida-linked militant group JNIM (Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin), which also claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attacks on Bamako’s international airport and four other cities in central and northern Mali.

The Azawad separatists have been fighting for years to create an independent state in northern Mali.

“This operation is being carried out in partnership with the JNIM, which is also committed to defending the people against the military regime in Bamako,” FLA spokesman Mohamed El-Maouloud Ramadan said in a statement on Saturday.

Malian government spokesman General Issa Ousmane Coulibaly said that 16 people had been wounded, including civilians and military personnel and that several militants were killed. He did not provide a death toll.

Bamako district governor Abdoulaye Coulibaly announced a three-day overnight curfew.

The separatists called on Russia to “reconsider its support for the military junta in Bamako, whose actions have contributed to the suffering of the civilian population.”

In Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, governments that came to power in military coups have sought to cast off Western neocolonialism, instead turning to Russia for help in combating Islamist militants.

But the security situation has worsened in recent times, with a record number of attacks by militants. Government forces have also been accused of killing civilians they suspect of collaborating with the militants. In 2024, an al-Qaida-linked group claimed responsibility for an attack on Bamako’s airport and a military training camp in the capital that killed scores of people.