Armed separatist rebels in Mali said on Tuesday that an army drone strike had killed seven of their members a day earlier in the north of the country, an area rocked by violent unrest.
The Monday strike targeted two of the separatists' vehicles, according to a statement published on Tuesday by the mainly Tuareg-led separatist coalition CSP-DPA.
The Malian army had said it destroyed on Monday "two vehicles, loaded with war material belonging to armed terrorist groups, around 80 kilometres (50 miles) north of the town of Anefis."
Drone strikes on Sunday in Tinzaouatene, near the Algerian border, killed around 20 civilians, including several children, according to separatist rebels, a local elected representative and an official from a local NGO.
'Terrorist targets'
The army said it had destroyed "terrorist targets" and killed "around 20 armed individuals" during the operation.
Tinzaouatene was the site of a major late July battle in which separatists and insurgents claimed to have inflicted a serious defeat on the Malian army and the Russian paramilitary group Wagner.
Since seizing power in a 2020 coup, Mali's military leaders have made it a priority to retake all of the country from separatists and insurgent forces.
Since 2023, armed separatist groups have lost control of several towns in the north, following an offensive by the Malian army that culminated in the capture of Kidal, a bastion of independence and a major sovereignty issue for the central government.
Mali moves from France
Under Colonel Assimi Goita, the junta broke a long-standing alliance with France and European partners, turning instead to Russia and its Wagner mercenary group for support.
Mali's offensive in the north has given rise to numerous allegations of abuses committed against civilians by the army and its Russian allies since 2022, which the Malian authorities deny.
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