Image source, AFP Image caption,

Mali's junta leader Col Assimi Goita says the mission "is not complete".

By Beverly Ochieng

BBC Monitoring

Mali's army has seized Kidal, a key town in the country's north that the ethnic Tuareg rebels have held for nearly a decade.

Kidal has been a bastion for the Tuareg, one of the rebel groups at the centre of the country's long-running political and security crises.

The army, reportedly backed by Wagner group mercenaries, has battled for Kidal for the past three days.

The head of the country's junta said the mission "is not complete", however.

Col Assimi Goita, Mali's interim president, said in a post on X his objective was to ensure the country's territorial integrity. The army has urged civilians in Kidal to remain calm.

The alliance known as the Permanent Strategic Framework (CSP), which is mostly formed of Tuareg armed groups, said that it had left Kidal "for strategic reasons", the AFP news agency reports quoting a rebel statement.

"The fight continues," it added.

On Monday, the Malian army said that its advance to Kidal had only been opposed by "a series of low intensity skirmishes" from what it described as "the alliance of terrorist armed groups".