An extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a deadly assault on two military sites in Mali’s capital, Bamako, on Tuesday, bringing a conflict that has ravaged vast swaths of the country to the capital for the first time since 2016.

Mali, a large, landlocked West African nation in the Sahel region, just south of the Sahara, has been battling an Islamist insurgency for 12 years. But the conflict has been mostly concentrated in the north and center of the country and has largely spared Bamako, in the southwest.

Before Tuesday’s assault, the last attack in Bamako was in 2016, when armed gunmen attacked a hotel that had been converted into the headquarters of a European Union military training mission.

Here’s what to know about the attack and security in Mali.

The first target on Tuesday was a school for military police in Faladié, a neighborhood halfway between Bamako’s downtown and its airport. Attackers opened fire around 5:30 a.m. and then entered the school, according to two security force members and an official in the presidential office who all spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to comment publicly on the attack.

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They said the attackers then made their way toward an air base south of the Bamako airport, which hosts personnel from Wagner, the private Russian military group, according to Western officials.

Mali’s armed forces blamed “a group of terrorists” for the assault and said that as of 9 a.m., it was working to clear the area around the school.

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