2025 Kobé Convoy Attack, Mali

Overview

On 7 February 2025, a large civilian convoy left the city of Gao in northern Mali bound for Ansongo, escorted by Malian army vehicles and allied Russian Wagner Group personnel. According to Human Rights Watch, the convoy comprised 19 civilian vehicles carrying more than a hundred people, most of them gold miners of foreign nationality traveling toward the Intahaka mining site near the border with Niger; other reporting from AFP and RFI put the convoy at 22 minibuses, six buses, and eight trucks under escort of roughly ten military vehicles. As the convoy passed near the village of Kobé, between Gao and Ansongo, gunmen suspected of belonging to the Islamic State – Sahel Province opened fire suddenly on the vehicles. Witnesses described passengers leaping from vehicles and feigning death to survive the assault.

Casualty figures varied across initial reporting: the Malian government's first statement on 8 February cited 25 civilians killed and 13 injured, while AFP and RFI subsequently reported at least 30 deaths. Human Rights Watch's investigation, published on 20 February 2025, documented 34 civilian deaths — 13 Malian nationals and 21 foreigners, mostly from Niger — and 34 additional people injured. Malian military officials also reported around 20 of their own soldiers killed or wounded in the firefight, along with a roughly equal number of militants killed, and stated that 19 "terrorist" bodies were recovered from the scene.

Attribution

No group formally claimed responsibility for the attack, but Malian and independent analysts attributed it to the Islamic State – Sahel Province (also referred to as ISGS), which has operated extensively in the Ménaka and Gao regions of northeastern Mali since 2017 and has repeatedly targeted convoys and imposed informal taxation on travelers along the Gao-Ansongo corridor.

Context

The attack took place in a part of Mali where ISSP had, since a 2022 offensive, seized most of the Ménaka region outside its namesake capital and continued pushing into neighbouring Gao region. Malian and Wagner forces had previously clashed with ISSP fighters along the same highway. In the aftermath of the Kobé attack, transporters operating in the Gao region went on strike, demanding an end to mandatory military escorts, which they argued had failed to prevent the ambush, and calling instead for additional army checkpoints along the route.

International Response

Human Rights Watch called on Malian authorities and their international partners, including the Wagner Group's state sponsors, to investigate the circumstances of the attack and to improve protection for civilian convoys operating in conflict-affected areas of northern Mali. The Malian army publicly vowed to pursue those responsible. The attack drew renewed attention from regional and international observers to the expanding operational reach of Islamic State-aligned militants across the central Sahel, an area increasingly marked by attacks on both security forces and civilians engaged in the region's informal gold-mining economy.