Tuareg separatist fighters in the north of Mali have been battling the central government to carve out their own swathe of territory in the vast desert on the border of Algeria. The Tuaregs have forged a temporary alliance with a jihadist group there called Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) to battle soldiers from the Malian central government and the Russian paramilitary forces they’ve hired as mercenaries. In a remarkable ambush, the rebels claim to have killed more than a hundred government troops and Russian paramilitaries. The ambush was supported with Ukrainian intelligence. Philip Obaji Jr., a correspondent for the Daily Beast who follows Russia’s operations on the African continent, explains how the ambush played out and its significance.