Some 30 Malian soldiers killed during retaking of key town, says army chief

General Jean Elysee Dao says 60 others also wounded as army retakes key town after nearly a week of fighting.

The Malian army says about 30 troops have been killed and dozens more wounded during an operation to retake the northern town of Anefis from rebels.

Tuareg separatists and fighters from an armed group linked to al-Qaeda captured Anefis in their latest series of simultaneous attacks on army positions across the country on July 4.

On Friday, the army said it had taken control of the town, some 100km (62 miles) from the strategic city of Kidal, after nearly a week of fighting.

“I regret the loss of around 30 people, 30 fallen martyrs,” army chief General Jean Elysee Dao told state TV, adding that about 60 were wounded, including some in serious condition.

“We also have around 60 wounded, including serious cases,” Dao said.

His comments came a day after the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) said it had lost some of its best fighters during the battle against the army and its allied Russian paramilitaries, but had inflicted “the heaviest material and human losses in their history in the region”.

Military-run Mali has been grappling with a security, political and humanitarian crisis for more than a decade.

The al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin controls swaths of rural territory in the country while the FLA seeks to establish an independent state in northern Mali.

While often at odds, fighters from the two groups or their predecessors have also partnered on occasion to fight common enemies, namely Mali’s government and its allies.

In late April, they were behind another series of coordinated attacks that targeted locations across Mali, killing Defence Minister Sadio Camara and prompting fighters to declare a siege on the capital, Bamako.