Mali

Al-Qaeda-linked Jihadists in Mali have kidnapped and executed a female TikTok star in front of her family after accusing her of filming them and collaborating with the army.

Mariam Cisse, who posted videos about the city of Tonka in the northern Timbuktu region to her 90,000 followers, was shot dead by suspected members of the notorious Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) terror group in a public square on November 7.

News of her death has shocked the country, which is ruled by a military junta that is struggling to contain the jihadist insurgency that has gripped the country since 2012.

Scores of people reportedly died in a jihadist attack in the Malian capital on Tuesday, again raising questions about the junta’s capacity to tackle a 12-year insurgency.

Islamic militants attacked a number of locations in Bamako, including an elite police training academy. The violence, which the al-Qaida affiliate Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) claimed to have carried out, led to the closure of the city’s airport for the day.

The authorities said the insurrection had been quelled and acknowledged on state television that there had been fatalities but did not disclose the number.

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Moussa Tolofidie didn’t think twice when nearly 100 jihadis on motorbikes gathered in his village in central Mali last week.

A peace agreement signed last year between some armed groups and the community in the Bankass area had largely held, even if the gunmen would sometimes enter the town to preach Shariah to the villagers. But on this Sunday in June, everything changed — the jihadis began killing people.

“They started with an old man about 100 years old … then the sounds of the weapons began to intensify around me and then at one moment I heard a bullet whistling behind my ear. I felt the earth spinning, I lost consciousness and fell to the ground,” Tolofidie, a 28-year-old farmer told The Associated Press by phone Friday in Mopti town, where he was receiving medical care.

The massacre has been blamed on Katibat Macina, a jihadist group linked to Al Qaeda

Alleged members of Katibat Macina, a jihadist group linked to Al Qaeda, killed at least 132 civilians in central Mali this past weekend, the Malian government reported in a statement on Monday. The attacks took place between Saturday afternoon and Sunday, when armed men on motorcycles entered three nearby villages in the Bandiagara area. There they executed civilians, mostly men, and set fire to houses, barns and vehicles, forcing the rest of the community to flee towards Bankass, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) away.

Canada will be joining the withdrawal of a French-led military contingent from Mali after supporting the operation against Islamist militants for nearly a decade, according to a joint declaration by the military allies.

Canada does not have troops in the counter-insurgency campaign, known today as Operation Barkhane and Task Force Takuba, but has been supporting it with Canadian military transport aircraft since 2013.

France and its allies in the West African country, including Canada, have been increasingly critical of Mali’s military junta after it postponed elections and recruited hundreds of Russian military contractors for its internal security.

At least 31 people have been killed in central Mali after militants attacked a bus carrying civilians to a market, local officials have said.

Unidentified gunmen opened fire and killed the driver, before setting the bus on fire, according to authorities.

Most of the victims were women who were on their way to work at the market, local sources told EFE news agency.

The deadly attack is the latest in Mali’s rapidly escalating jihadist insurgency.

More than 51 people have been killed in northern Mali by jihadists, who attacked three villages near the border with Niger, killing and torching homes, in the latest mass attack in a region beset by violence.

Militants on motorbikes overwhelmed the villages simultaneously on Sunday evening, entering and killing indiscriminately and burning and ransacking homes, according to security officials.

“The terrorists went into the villages and massacred everyone,” a military officer told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. “More than 40 civilians were killed by terrorists on Sunday in the villages of Karou, Ouatagouna and Daoutegeft,” they said.