Mali army airstrikes target rebel-held northern town

Mali's army carried out overnight airstrikes on the northern town of Kidal, which has been under the control of Tuareg separatists and their jihadist allies since a large-scale offensive last month, the army and witnesses said Thursday.

"We are targeting specific targets. We have our strategy. In the coming days, the strikes will intensify," an officer at the official command post of the army in the central town of Mopti told AFP.

At least four airstrikes were carried out in the night and caused damage, a witness in Kidal said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A house near an old market was destroyed and another airstrike left a crater inside the vast courtyard of the governor's office in Kidal, the witness said.

The strategic town in Mali's desert north was unusually quiet early on Thursday with little traffic on the roads, the witness added.

The coordinated deadly offensive by Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists and Tuareg separatists on April 25 and 26 targeted strategic towns and killed the country's influential defence minister.

Under an alliance forged a year ago, Tuareg rebels of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) teamed up with the Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) to launch the assaults.

Kidal and other towns and villages in the north were captured and are now controlled by the FLA and the jihadists, who have since imposed a blockade on the capital, Bamako.

A historically nomadic people, Tuaregs, who are spread across Mali, Niger, Algeria, Libya and Burkina Faso, have waged an armed struggle for decades against marginalisation, with action centred in particular around Kidal.