Did Westerners, Ukrainians, And Islamists Help Tuareg Rebels Ambush Wagner In Mali?

The Tuareg Conflict is on pace to become another proxy war between Russia and the West.

Speculation is swirling in the days after Tuareg rebels ambushed Wagner in Mali, which readers can learn more about here and here, to suggest that they had the support of Westerners, Ukrainians, and Islamists. Former ECOWAS Director of Communication Adama Gaye told Al Jazeera on Sunday that “Tuareg forces could be receiving outside help, including from the French military and regional armed groups with ‘allegiance to al-Qaeda’”, which set the stage for the reports that’ll now follow.

RT then reported that Nikita Fedyanin, the administrator of the Wagner-linked Telegram channel Grey Zone, found evidence while embedded with the group to suggest that Ukraine’s GUR has “allegedly been training local Tuareg separatist militants, as well as covertly bringing at least two groups of them to Ukraine to teach them to use FPV drones.” He was killed during the ambush, but RT was able to obtain some of his photos and other information from the report that he was working on while there.

This was followed by TASS sharing the insight of Alexander Ivanov, director of the Community of Officers for International Security, who told them that “The ambush they ran into was much better organized than what they had encountered before. They had reconnaissance and special units <…>, necessary vehicles and weapons. Apart from that, the weather was unfavorable for us [government forces]. It looks like Western forces coordinated militants’ actions.”

Ivanov added that “It has been reported since last year that foreign forces - French agents, American private military companies and even Ukrainian instructors engaged to train militants - have intensified their activities in this region. It requires a serious re-assessment of forces and capacities by all Russian military specialists and our allies to take the situation under control.” Wagner’s official Telegram channel then shared a detailed summary of what unfolded the day after on Monday morning.

According to them, up to 1,000 Al-Qaeda-linked Islamists joined forces with Tuareg separatists and employed an array of arms from heavy weapons to drones and even suicide car bombs. Later that morning, this channel forwarded a message from an affiliated account which clarified that the operation was planned by the Malian Armed Forces, not their group. They also shared their opinion that “The Ukrainian trace is very far-fetched. Although everything is possible.”

The last of the Russian sources to be cited in this analysis is Rybar’s report from Sunday. This top Russian Telegram channel, which has over 1.1 million subscribers and doubles as a think tank of sorts, was extremely critical of what transpired. They’re considered to be a patriotic outlet though so their critiques shouldn’t be suspected of having any ulterior motive such as wanting to demoralize Russia’s supporters. Here’s what they concluded:

“In narrow circles, they are already trying to justify the defeat of the column by the fact that the Americans, French, English, and aliens joined in the planning of the operation. In fact, we are seeing another example of a serious underestimation of the enemy. Despite the initial successes and damage to the separatists at the beginning of the offensive, it became impossible to consolidate the success due to the limited forces.

Most likely, the local command decided that they were fighting ‘stupid monkeys’ who they could defeat ‘with one hand.’ The fact that the Tuaregs had been successfully fighting in their native desert for 12 years was probably simply brushed aside. Unfortunately, it is precisely for such mistakes that not only Africans but also the power of the ‘Russian weapon’ pay with their reputation. We hope that the adventure at Tin-Zoutin will become a lesson for the military leadership on the ground.”

Reviewing the six materials that were shared above, Gaye’s speculation that Al-Qaeda provided some level of support for the Tuaregs aligns with historical precedent from 2012-2013 and is shared by Ivanov, Wagner, their affiliated channel, and Rybar. As for the Western trace, this is only shared by Gaye and Ivanov, while Ivanov and Fedyanin/RT lent credence to the Ukrainian one, which Wagner’s affiliated channel and Rybar were skeptical of.

Despite those last two throwing cold water on the Ukrainian trace, it still can’t be ruled out since the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this spring on how Ukrainian mercenaries have been fighting against Wagner’s local allies in Sudan, the claim of which was analyzed here at the time. “Ukraine Is Presenting Itself As A Reliable Mercenary Force Against Russia In Africa”, so it therefore follows that they might try to get involved in Mali via the Tuareg rebels with the assistance of their US and French allies.

After all, they have an interest in waging a proxy war on Russia there as revenge for Moscow helping to kick them out of the Sahel, where France used to lord over an exclusive “sphere of influence” for decades till last year. These two analyses here and here discuss the ways in which they’re poised to work together in an attempt to regain some of their lost strategic ground. Incorporating experienced Ukrainian special forces units into their plans would be a natural evolution of this strategy.

The photograph that the “Kyiv Post” shared later on Monday showing Tuareg rebels posing with a Ukrainian flag alongside what might be members of GUR supports this, as does the statement from GUR representative Andrey Yusov around the same time. He claimed that “The rebels received the necessary information and not just information, which allowed them to conduct a successful military operation against Russian war criminals. We certainly will not disclose details at this time; to be continued.”

These last two pieces of evidence prove that the Ukrainian trace does indeed exist despite the skepticism expressed by Wagner’s affiliated channel and Rybar. That said, it might also be exaggerated for psy-op purposes in order to bolster Ukraine’s envisaged reputation as a reliable mercenary force against Russia in Africa and present the ambush as their partial victory. Be that as it may, everything will certainly become clearer with time, but the Islamist trace is much less debatable than the Ukrainian one.

Al-Qaeda’s role in all of this discredits the Tuaregs’ cause just like it did during 2012-2013 when another affiliated group allied with the separatists but then ended up taking over their movement and prompting a large-scale French military intervention that only ended in 2022. Such terrorists have been active in the largely lawless Saharan and Sahelian regions for some time already, and while some do indeed operate independently of any state patrons, others also work directly and indirectly with them at times too.

For instance, Al-Qaeda and ISIS’ local franchises are suspected by some of becoming Western proxies for reasons of political convenience in pursuit of shared causes like in post-withdrawal Afghanistan, while it’s indisputable that the coalition’s 2014-2015 bombing campaign in Syria served to shepherd ISIS towards Damascus. The point is that the involvement of infamous terrorist groups in the Tuareg Conflict isn’t unprecedented nor surprising, especially since it’s becoming another New Cold War proxy war.

The Tuaregs are fierce desert fighters who’ve launched several rebellions in Mali since its independence in 1960 and their cause closely mirrors the Kurds’ in the sense that they’re a geographically dispersed people who were left without their own country due to the legacy of imperial-era colonialism. Truth be told, some of their grievances are legitimate and can’t be dismissed as the product of foreign divide-and-rule meddling, which makes Western and Ukrainian support for them less controversial at home.

The increasing complexity of this conflict might lead to Russia recalibrating its approach in order to flexibly adapt to these new conditions instead of continuing with the same one and thus risking more ambushes. Failure isn’t an option since that could lead to a domino effect that might reverse the region’s multipolar progress over the past two years, but that’s not to say that a political solution is impossible either since a purely military one is ill-advised.

The best-case scenario would be for Russia to broker a return to the 2015 Algiers Accord, or at least an amended form of that agreement, which Bamako scrapped in early January after accusing the Tuaregs of violating it first. The root causes behind the Tuaregs’ multiple rebellions over the decades must be sustainably addressed in order to reduce the chances of average Tuaregs being lured by foreign forces into taking up arms against the state yet again as part of their divide-and-rule geopolitical plans.

Russia’s experience in the Syrian peace process could greatly help, especially if it cooperates with Algeria, which brokered the latest agreement. A military solution is required for neutralizing terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, but it isn’t always the wisest approach when combating separatists like the Kurds and Tuaregs. If Russia can get Mali to agree to resume peace talks, then that might take the wind out of the West’s sails and de-escalate this growing New Cold War crisis before it spirals out of control.