What happened on 1 May 2026 as jihadists took Tessalit base
A retrospective on the Mali base handover and related reports from the days before it.
What happened in northern Mali on 1 May 2026? Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, a jihadist group, took over a base outside Tessalit in the Kidal Region after it had been abandoned by Malian troops and Russia's Africa Corps, according to reports from that day.
The handover followed days of upheaval in the region. On 26 April 2026, Malian troops and Russian mercenaries withdrew from Kidal after attacks the previous day. The Tessalit base was part of the same sequence, listed under the 2026 Mali attacks and offensives within the wider Mali War.
Other reports in the preceding days
On 25 April 2026, The Nord, a superyacht linked to the sanctioned Russian oligarch Alexei Mordashov, crossed the Strait of Hormuz. The crossing was reported as part of the 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis, during the 2026 Iran war. The Nord is a 142-metre vessel built by Lürssen. After Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it sailed to the Seychelles and then to the Russian Pacific port of Vladivostok, away from possible seizure by Western authorities.
In Ukraine, new parts of the so-called Mindich tapes were published on 28 April 2026. They were recordings of conversations between the businessman Tymur Mindich, described as an alleged confidant, and senior officials, including Rustem Umerov.
Taken together, the reports from late April and 1 May 2026 covered the loss of Malian and Russian-backed positions in Kidal Region, a sanctions-linked yacht transit through Hormuz, and a fresh release of recordings in Kyiv's political arena.
