Russian Wagner suffered its deadliest loss in the African Sahel

(Patria) - Dozens of Wagner mercenaries were killed by jihadists and rebels over the weekend in northern Mali in what one analyst described on Monday as the biggest battlefield blow to the Russian group in several years. At least two other mercenaries were captured, AP reported.

About fifty Wagner fighters were killed in an ambush by Al-Qaeda, joined by rebels, along the border with Algeria, said Wassim Nasr, a Sahel specialist and senior research fellow at the Soufan Center, adding that he counted bodies in footage after the attack. The mercenaries were mostly fighting Tuareg rebels alongside the Malian army when their convoy was forced to retreat into jihadist territory and fell into an ambush south of the Tinzaouaten commune, Nasr said.

Wagner confirmed on Monday on Telegram that some of its fighters, as well as Malian troops, were killed in a battle with hundreds of militants. The mercenary group did not say how many of its fighters were killed. The Malian army said it lost two soldiers and that twenty rebels were killed.

In a statement over the weekend, Al-Qaeda said that fifty Wagner fighters were killed in an attack intended to "avenge the massacres committed in central and northern" Mali.

Tuareg rebels said an unspecified number of mercenaries and Malian soldiers had surrendered to them.

"This is really important. It has never happened before on African soil and it will change the dynamics," Nasr said.

"They (Wagner) will no longer send such wild expeditions near the border with Algeria. They boasted about how well they were doing and how strong they were, but they don't have the manpower to do it for long or to hold territory to secure their deployment."

Russia has exploited the deteriorating relations between the West and coup-hit Sahel nations in West Africa to send fighters and assert its influence.

Wagner has been active in the Sahel, a vast expanse south of the Sahara Desert, as mercenaries profit from seized mineral wealth in exchange for their security services.

Wagner has been in Mali since late 2021, after the military coup, replacing French troops and international peacekeepers in helping to fight militants who have threatened communities in central and northern regions for more than a decade. At the same time, Wagner has been accused of helping to carry out raids and drone strikes that killed civilians. The group had about 1,000 fighters in Mali.

Since helping Malian forces regain control of the key northern city of Kidal, Wagner mercenaries have been overconfident and overstretched, analyst John Lechner said.

He said that failures like the ambush are why Wagner is in Mali. "Big losses or setbacks are attributed to private military companies," he said. "And victory to the (Russian) Ministry of Defence."