The spokesperson for the Tuareg separatists of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) assured Wednesday that the “regime” in power in Bamako “will fall”. Assuring that the rebels intend to "liberate" Gao, Timbuktu and Menaka, Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane also affirmed that his objective is for "Russia to definitively withdraw from [the region of] Azawad".
Published on: 04/29/2026 - 2:06 p.m. Modified on: 04/29/2026 - 3:25 p.m.
The Malian junta, in power in Bamako, "will fall sooner or later" in the face of the combined offensive of jihadists and Tuareg separatists from the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), the spokesperson for the rebel movement, Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, assured AFP on Wednesday April 29.
"The regime will fall, sooner or later. It will fall, they have no solution to stay in power. (...) Faced with the offensive of the FLA to recover the territory of Azawad [region of northern Mali, Editor's note] on the one hand, and the offensive of the others [the jihadists of Jnim, Editor's note] on Bamako and other cities, they will not be able to hold out," Mohamed Elmaouloud said in an interview with AFP Ramadane, passing through Paris.
According to him, "the situation is far from being under control" of the junta, as claimed by its leader Assimi Goïta.
The FLA, made up of Tuareg, Fulani and Arab communities in particular, seized the strategic town of Kidal last weekend, forcing the Russian paramilitaries of the Africa Corps to withdraw. The Kidal region "today is 80% under our control", according to him.
Read Jnim-FLA alliance, weakened junta, departure of Russian mercenaries: what is happening in Mali?
The separatists now intend to seize other regions in the north of the country.
“We have already liberated Kidal, Taoudenit was already under our control. Gao, Timbuktu and Menaka will be our next objectives to liberate,” confided Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane.
Bamako threatened with blockade
Furthermore, Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane affirmed that the Russians must withdraw from “all of Mali”. “Our goal is for Russia to definitively withdraw from Azawad and beyond, from all of Mali,” he said.
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“All the confrontations we had with the Russians, we won,” he recalled, specifying that the Russian forces had been “escorted from Kidal to the town of Anefis”, to the southwest of the city.
But "we do not have a problem particularly with Russia, nor with any other country, our problem is with the regime which manages Bamako", assured the spokesperson for the rebel movement.
Read alsoAfter the death of General Sadio Camara, Russian influence in Mali called into question?
In a post on social networks, the Russian Defense Ministry estimated that rebels and jihadists were regrouping and that the situation in Mali remained "difficult".
On Tuesday, the jihadists of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (Jnim, allied with Al-Qaeda) for their part threatened to impose a blockade on the entrances to the Malian capital Bamako, according to a video from one of their spokespersons.
With AFP
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