Mali: How junta and Wagner forces seized control of rebel stronghold Kidal
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00:00 other world news, the army in Mali has seized back control of a major rebel
00:05 stronghold in the north of the country. The city of Kidal had been held by Tuareg
00:09 separatist groups for several years, posing a challenge to the sovereignty of
00:13 Mali's military rulers and the Tuaregs have long accused the central
00:19 government there of neglect and have been pushing for independence.
00:26 To tell us a bit more, Waseem Nasser from our terrorism desk is with me in the
00:31 studio and Waseem, first of all what's the latest today on the ground in Kidal?
00:34 Well actually we know that yesterday forces of the Malian army, special forces
00:40 and of Russian mercenaries Wagner succeeded in getting into the town of
00:46 Kidal and we're gonna see a map where we see how they how did they proceed to
00:53 enter the city. So the latest fight was in Al-Qeed and then they went through as
00:58 we see on the red arrow south of Kidal into the Minusma facility, the United
01:03 Nations forces who left the town actually a few days back and then into
01:07 the town and we have footage where we see Wagner operatives in their vehicles
01:13 here as we see it cheered by some people in the street of Kidal which confirms
01:18 that actually they are in town and what's interesting is there was no fight
01:23 in the town between the Malian army Wagner on one side and rebel Tuareg
01:29 faction on the other side because as I was told they decided to leave the town
01:34 without a fight meaning also with part of the civilians living in the town.
01:41 And do we know how the military campaign got underway?
01:43 Actually the military campaign was ongoing since since weeks where the
01:47 Tuareg tried many times to counter the advance of Malian forces and
01:54 we're gonna have two footage from Al-Qeed that was Saturday on the 11th and
01:58 we see that they succeeded to stop the convoy on the road that we saw before
02:02 the Iran-18 which pushed actually the forces to go around the road yesterday.
02:09 So here they stopped the convoy they destroyed some vehicles but what's
02:14 mostly interesting is if we look at another footage that we have we know
02:20 that Malian forces used drones Turkish drones and here's the rare footage of a
02:25 drone hitting Tuareg rebel forces in another area but it's the only
02:30 footage where we have evidence of this knowing that the Tuareg succeeded in
02:34 downing many planes and many helicopters but it's difficult for them to count on
02:39 drones and this is why Malian forces concentrated their effort on Anifis
02:44 to make it capable to be next to Qidal to make the use of drones possible
02:49 against forces there and this is what pushed also Tuareg forces who lost many
02:53 vehicles and men to leave Qidal without a fight but what we should know
02:58 also that they tried to counter Malian forces since weeks. We have footage of
03:02 Bamba that we see here on the on the map where fighting occurred we have
03:09 fighting we had fighting in Buram also in Anifis and this is fighting of what
03:15 we see here is Bamba but actually at the end of the day the Tuareg forces
03:20 weren't able to coordinate between the front on the east and the front on the
03:24 west and which is mostly important in the fight of Qidal that all along those
03:30 weeks and months of fighting we had also Al-Qaeda getting into the fight from its
03:35 side and hitting Malian forces hitting Wagner forces. The particular thing
03:39 about Qidal is since the 15th of October Al-Qaeda didn't get into the fight so I
03:45 asked why Al-Qaeda didn't get into the fight and actually because they consider
03:49 Qidal as a very important bastion of the rebel forces in Mali and losing Qidal
03:55 will mean for Al-Qaeda more recruitments in its rank instead of rebel factions
04:01 who as Al-Qaeda says are divided and are on the fight which is more of interest
04:06 than for liberation as Al-Qaeda says. And just a final question we know this is a
04:11 strategic win for the Malian army how do you think this will affect the military
04:16 government there now? Well actually it's a win because that's one of most
04:20 important objectives of Bamako since since the second coup d'etat at least
04:24 taking back Qidal they succeeded it's a communication stunt but
04:30 militarily on the ground the situation will still be difficult Qidal isn't
04:34 important militarily. Tessalit is where Malian forces are also on the border with
04:38 Algeria and here we see the fighting in Asharan so as I was saying
04:42 between Al-Qaeda and Malian forces the fighting was very hard between Al-Qaeda
04:46 and Malian forces in other areas this is the area of Tombouctou so this fight
04:51 will go on actually on other in other areas and mostly we have to know it's
04:56 also that this is also Al-Qaeda fighting Wagner forces the drone footage is
05:02 Al-Qaeda footage actually so they have enough means to fight the Malian forces
05:07 and Wagner forces which they decided not to use and there's a real impact also
05:13 on civilians so we have very very rare footage about civilians who left the
05:17 area of Qidal and went to to to the border with Algeria and Tinezwatane
05:24 and we see that those people who left their towns are in a very critical
05:29 position and they can be used by one party or another into the upcoming fight
05:35 so it's a period which is ending rebel factions lost it will change the
05:41 equilibrium politically and socially in Qidal of course but that this does not
05:45 mean the end of the war