The Malian army has announced that approximately 30 troops were killed and dozens more wounded during an operation to retake the northern town of Anefis from rebels.

Tuareg separatists and fighters from an al-Qaeda-linked group captured Anefis on July 4 in a series of coordinated attacks on army positions across the country.

On Friday, the army declared it had regained control of the town, located about 100 km from the strategic city of Kidal, after nearly a week of fighting. Army chief General Jean Elysee Dao told state TV: “I regret the loss of around 30 people, 30 fallen martyrs,” adding that about 60 were wounded, including some in serious condition.

His comments came a day after the Tuareg-led Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) said it had lost some of its best fighters during the battle against the army and its allied Russian paramilitaries, but had inflicted “the heaviest material and human losses in their history in the region”.

Military-run Mali has been grappling with a security, political and humanitarian crisis for over a decade. The al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin controls vast rural areas, while the FLA seeks an independent state in northern Mali. The two groups have sometimes cooperated against common enemies, including the Malian government and its allies.

Source: www.aljazeera.com