Russia’s Wagner has deadliest loss in Africa’s Sahel, highlighting the region’s instability

BY CHINEDU ASADU AND SAM MEDNICK

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Dozens of Wagner mercenaries were killed by jihadis and rebels over the weekend in northern Mali in what one analyst described on Monday as the largest battleground blow to the shadowy Russian group in years. At least two others were taken captive.

Approximately 50 Wagner fighters in a convoy were killed in an al-Qaida ambush, which was joined by rebels who were in pursuit, along the border with Algeria, said Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, a security think tank, who said he counted bodies in a video of the aftermath. The mercenaries had been fighting mostly Tuareg rebels alongside Mali’s army when their convoy was forced to retreat into jihadi territory and ambushed south of the commune of Tinzaouaten, Nasr said.

Wagner confirmed in a Telegram statement on Monday that some of