More than 100 suspected jihadists have been freed in recent days in Mali as part of an agreement to stop attacks on fuel convoys that have asphyxiated the impoverished West African country, official and security sources told AFP on Sunday.
Since last September, jihadists from the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, an Al-Qaeda affiliate known by its Arab acronym JNIM, have been attacking tanker convoys, bringing the capital Bamako to a complete standstill at the height of the crisis in October.
A local elected representative confirmed to AFP the “release of more than 100 jihadists” in exchange for “the opening of a corridor to allow convoys of tanker lorries to pass through.”
“We learned this week that more than a hundred young people accused of being jihadists have been released by the state security services”, and “in return, fuel convoys have not been attacked,” added an elected representative from central Mali who lives in Bamako.
Several security sources told AFP that the truce will remain in place until the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha—known as Tabaski in the region—at the end of May.
“Many of the Fulani who were arrested have also been released,” AFP was told by an association representing this ethnic group, which is often conflated with jihadists.
Since 2012, landlocked Mali has been facing a profound security crisis fueled in particular by violence from groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, as well as local criminal gangs.
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