BAMAKO, March 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Gunmen attacked and briefly seized a Malian army base on Saturday’s night, killing at least 16 soldiers and destroying five vehicles in central Mali’s Mopti region, the mayor in the area where the attack happened said on Sunday.
The base is in the village of Dioura, the mayor of the nearest town Kareri, Youssouf Coulibaly, said. Central Mali has in the past few years been overrun by jihadists with links to al Qaeda.
“I’m currently inside the base and there were many deaths here. We’ve counted 16 so far,” Coulibaly said. Army spokesman Colonel Diarran Kone confirmed the attack but gave no further details.
Violence by jihadist groups has worsened almost every year since it first exploded in Mali in 2012, when Islamists and allied Tuareg rebels took over the north and advanced toward the capital Bamako, until a French-led intervention pushed them back the following year.
Groups linked to al Qaeda and Daesh used central and northern Mali as a launch pad for growing numbers of attacks across the Sahel region, especially on neighbors Niger and Burkina Faso, despite the presence of 4,500 French troops.
Central Mali is the locus of the Macina Liberation Front, led by Salafist preacher and militant leader Amadou Koufa. French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly claimed in November that Koufa had been killed in a raid by French forces. — NNN-AGENCIES