Mali: two attacks target UN and Malian forces
The UN MINUSMA force in Kidal, northern Mali, in September 2015 (illustrative image).
Photo MINUSMA / Marco Dormino
Text by: David Baché
3 min
Two terrorist attacks targeted on the one hand the Malian army, in the center of the country, and on the other hand the United Nations Mission in Mali (Minusma), in the far north.
The latter was particularly violent.
In the same region, the French army for its part carried out an attack against a camp of suspected jihadists on Thursday April 1.
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From our special correspondent in Bamako
The attack on Minusma began with around 20 rockets that fell on the UN camp of Aguelhoc (Kidal region).
A kamikaze vehicle followed, then a hundred assailants, according to Minusma, aboard motorcycles and pick-ups.
The fight between the blue helmets (of the Chadian contingent) and the terrorists lasted nearly three hours, before the intervention of the planes of the French force Barkhane forced the attackers to flee.
A report from a UN source reports four peacekeepers killed, twenty wounded;
opposite, about twenty jihadists killed.
Almost at the same time, this time in the center of the country, in Diafarabé, near Tenenkou (Mopti region), a Malian military camp was attacked around 5 a.m.
According to the Malian army and details from other sources, security and local, the attackers were eventually pushed back, but three Malian soldiers were killed and about fifteen wounded.
Some of them had to be evacuated in an emergency by helicopter.
During the Malian response, five to ten attackers, according to sources, were killed.
On Thursday, the French Barkhane force carried out a helicopter-borne counterterrorism operation against a nomadic camp near Abeibera (Kidal region).
According to several local sources, a suspected jihadist and his wife were killed, their injured daughter was evacuated.
She has been treated and is now, according to the French army, out of danger.
Two men were taken prisoner.
Information confirmed by a statement from the French army.
Neither Aguelhoc's attack on Minusma, nor Diafarabé's attack on the Malian army has been claimed.
But these are areas where the katibas of the Support Group for Islam and Muslims, linked to Aqmi, regularly carry out attacks.
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Mali
Terrorism
UN