Malian junta leader and interim president Assimi Goita has taken on the duties of defense minister, authorities said Monday, after the incumbent was killed in a suicide bombing that was part of the country’s most sweeping coordinated militant offensive in more than a decade. The presidential decree, read on state television, also named Gen. Oumar Diarra, the former armed forces chief of staff, as deputy defense minister. The April 25 killing of Defense Minister Gen. Sadio Camara occurred when a suicide bomber targeted his home in Kati, a garrison town near the capital Bamako, in attacks that struck multiple cities and towns simultaneously, according to security reports.
The offensive, carried out by the al-Qaida-linked group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, and the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front, overran several key towns and military bases. It was among the most ambitious operations by the groups since Mali’s military junta seized power in a 2020 coup, promising to restore security after years of insurgency. Instead, the junta’s pivot to Russia as its new security partner, expelling French forces and a United Nations peacekeeping mission, has coincided with a sharp deterioration in the security situation. Analysts say that under junta rule, the country has experienced record numbers of attacks and civilian deaths, at the hands of both militant groups and government forces.
The consolidation of the defense portfolio under Goita, who already holds the presidency, tightens the junta’s grip at a moment of crisis. Goita’s new role was announced alongside a wave of arrests of military personnel, civilians, and political figures suspected of having ties to the separatists and militants behind the April attacks, according to Malian authorities. The crackdown has drawn alarm from rights groups and further unsettled the political landscape.
In a separate incident that has heightened tensions, a former Malian minister and vocal critic of the junta was abducted from his home on Saturday by armed men, his family told The Associated Press. The identity of the abductors was not immediately clear. The junta has not commented on the abduction.
Meanwhile, JNIM fighters have maintained a blockade around Bamako since late April, setting up roadblocks and checkpoints that have severely restricted traffic. Transport companies told the AP that while several roads were blocked early on, the armed groups have now focused their blockade on the sole route connecting the capital to the western city of Kayes. Other roads linking Bamako to the rest of the country remain largely passable, but the blockade has heightened the sense of siege in the capital, where residents are bracing for further unrest.