Wagner Enters the Tuareg’s Existential War in Mali

At least 23 Tuareg civilians have been killed by elements of the Malian army (FAMA) and Wagner forces in Mali's Kidal region in four days, between July 9th and 12th. According to a statement from the Permanent Strategic Framework for the Defense of the People of Azawad (CSP-DPA), seven civilians and one member of the Malian armed forces who was on leave were killed in the village of Takalote, while another five men were killed in the northeastern commune of Tin-Essako and buried in a mass grave. "Following this horrible mission, more than 10 unarmed civilians were executed," the statement said..What You Need to Know.After the attack on Takalote across July 9-12th, Wagner forces moved into Tin-Essako, where the bodies of five civilians, Ebagraz Ag Mahamad (69 years), Mohamed Ag Attiyoub (23 years), Mossa Ag Attiyoub (12 years), Mossa Ag Bakila (40 years), and Mahmoud Ag Zaydoune (35 years), were found in a mass grave..In the aftermath of the attack and according to local reports, a well in Innoufassan, which is believed to be near Tin-Essako, was poisoned as the villagers fled.."Cows were slaughtered and their carcasses trapped," said the CSP-DPA, with the head of a slaughtered cow found buried and rigged with explosives..It is alleged that at least 10 unarmed civilians were killed as FAMA and Wagner forces departed Tin-Essako..Attacks against Tuaregs have increased in the country in recent weeks, with a series of drone strikes conducted on Tin-Essako on June 19th. The increased attacks signal the beginning of a counter-offensive against the Tuareg rebels, with which the Malian government under Assimi Goita terminated a 2015 peace agreement in late January..In response, Inkinane Ag Attaher, Commander of the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA)—who made serious gains against the Malian army in 2012—posted images of multiple improvised explosive devices (IEDs), stating, "Wagner traps in Azawad.".The Details.Azawad, roughly translating to 'the land of transhumance,' in reference to the nomadic lifestyles of the Tuareg people, is an imagined state found in northern Mali, where the country's Tuaregs reside..The Tuareg people are a group of semi-nomadic herders found in northern Mali, the border regions of Niger, Burkina Faso, Algeria, Mauritania and Libya. They speak a Berber-based language, either Tamashek, Tamajaq, or Tamahaq depending on where they live. During the colonization period, the Tuareg people became fragmented by the borders drawn by the French, which impeded the Tuareg desire for an independent state..As a result and since independence in 1960, various armed Tuareg groups have fought against the Malian government in order to realize the creation of an independent state. Russia's Wagner group was recruited in December 2021 to aid the newly established military junta of Colonel Assimi Goita, who ousted President Bah N'daw in a May 2021 coup. Since then, Wagner and FAMA forces have conducted a brutal counter-insurgency campaign against the country's many armed groups, including Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM)—an umbrella group of Islamic militant organizations such as Ansar al-Din, al-Mourabitoun (MUJAO), Katiba Macina, and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)—the Islamic State in the Greater Sahel (ISGS), and the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), an umbrella group of Tuareg separatist movements..Wagner told the Malian junta, "There is a military solution to the return of Kidal and the north, and we'll help you get there,'" John Lechner, the author of the forthcoming Death Is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries in the New Era of Private Warfare, told The Atlantic in May. "They were going to go after both the terrorists and Tuareg separatists. That was their major selling point.".The introduction of Russian paramilitary groups such as Wagner, as well as branches of the 'Africa Corps'—a rebranded semi-official paramilitary structure that some analysts are calling the new Wagner post-Prigozhin—has had a direct impact on the welfare of the country's civilians, with multiple massacres against civilians occurring since the December deployment. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), violence against civilians in Mali increased by 38 percent in September 2023, with Wagner responsible for 160 incidents of recorded violence, or 29 percent. Furthermore, ACLED claims that in 2023, the mercenary group's engagement in violence more than tripled when compared to 2022 statistics..Tuareg separatists had been relatively quiet, holding Kidal, but otherwise being less provocative to the Malian government and military than JNIM—but that was before Wagner came for them..So, What Now?.Contributing to the increase in violence is the slow isolation of the country, as Mali inches closer to ally Russia and moves to silence opposition media and critics of Goita's junta. Last year, the United Nations warned Mali that it would be impossible to continue to deploy its peacekeepers unless the nation carried out steps toward peace and elections in 2024, and eventually withdrew its approximately 15,000 troops in December..Nonetheless, speaking last Wednesday, the nation's Council of Ministers announced the lifting of the suspension of political activities, which had been in place since April..The move to enable political activities is likely to have little impact on the condition of the nation's civilians, particularly the Tuaregs, who remain targets of the military regime and its Russian-backed enforcers. While political parties may resume activities, it is likely that they will self-censor so as not to appear too threatening to the junta for fear of reprisal or jail.