Russia's Africa Corps [10] launched air-strikes and helicopter assaults to drive back a dramatic rebel advance on Mali's capital Bamako April 25. Former rival insurgent groups, the jihadist Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM [11]) and the Tuareg separatist Front de Libération de l'Azawad (FLA [12]), came together for the joint offensive against the ruling military government, with simultaneous attacks on Mopti, Gao and Kidal as well as the capital. Mali's defense minister, Lt. Gen. Sadio Camara, the key liaison between the army and Russian mercenary forces, was killed in an apparent suicide truck bombing on his residence outside Bamako. (BBC News [14], BBC News [15], NYT [16], RFI [17], War on the Rocks [18])
