Shahed-Type Drones Filmed During Attack on Mali Villages

Bellingcat says it has geolocated footage showing Shahed-136 type kamikaze drones being used in attacks on villages in northern Mali, offering some of the clearest open-source evidence to date of their deployment there. Working with Jeune Afrique, the investigators verified two strikes using satellite imagery and expert analysis — one hitting a commercial site in Inafarak on July 12, and another in Talahandak on July 17 that killed one person and set a truck ablaze. Experts told Bellingcat the drones were quite likely manufactured in Russia, pointing to the presence of the Kremlin-controlled Africa Corps group and Moscow's broader military support for the Malian armed forces. The Shahed-136 is a long-range one-way attack drone, originally developed in Iran, that is designed to explode on impact — giving operators a cheap, expendable strike capability that reaches far beyond Mali's other drones, though it is far less precise.

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