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According to a presidential decree announced on state
television, Assimi Goita will remain president while also taking
on the new role. Former armed forces chief of staff Gen. Oumar
Diarra will assist him as deputy defense minister.
The announcement comes after Defense Minister Gen. Sadio Camara
was killed on April 25, in a suicide bombing that targeted his
home in Kati, a garrison town near the capital, Bamako.
Along with Bamako, Kati was one of several cities and towns
attacked by militants from the al-Qaida-linked group Jama’at
Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, and rebels from the
Azawad Liberation Front, a Tuareg-led separatist group, in one
of the biggest coordinated attacks in the country in over a
decade.
The Islamic militants and separatists seized several key towns
and military bases.
Mali has been ruled by a military junta that took power in a
2020 coup, promising to restore security amid a surge of
extremist attacks. Since seizing the country, the junta turned
to Russia as its new security partner, forcing traditional
allies like France and a U.N. peacekeeping mission to leave.
But the security situation has since worsened in Mali, analysts
say, with record numbers of attacks and civilians killed, both
by both Islamic fighters and government forces.
The announcement of Goita's new role comes as tensions have
escalated following arrests of military personnel, civilians and
political leaders suspected of having ties to the separatists
and militants responsible for the attacks.
On Saturday, a former Malian minister and junta critic was
abducted from his home by armed men, his family told The
Associated Press Sunday.
Meanwhile, JNIM fighters intensified their pressure on the
military government by imposing a blockade around Bamako since
last week, setting up road blocks and checkpoints and preventing
traffic.
Transport companies told the AP that while the blockade
disrupted travel on several roads last week, the armed groups
have now blocked the only the route between Bamako and the
Western city of Kayes, with other roads linking the capital to
the rest of the country remaining largely passable.
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