Mali car suicide bomb blast kills four civilians, wounds four French soldiers

July 1, 2018  23H:25  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Rashida Adjani and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, BAMAKO

BAMAKO  - An attack on a military patrol in northern Mali on Sunday killed four civilians and wounded 31 others, including four French soldiers, Mali’s government and the French army said.

The ambush, which involved a car bomb explosion followed by gunfire, took place two days after Islamist militants killed at least six people during a raid on a military headquarters in central Mali, a country where French troops are helping combat jihadists across its vast desert reaches.

The deteriorating security situation a month ahead of a presidential election points to the difficulty international partners face restoring peace in Mali, which has become a launchpad for attacks by groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State across West Africa.

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Photos posted on social media showed black smoke billowing from an armored vehicle surrounded by debris on a sandy road.

“From hospital sources, the provisional record after the suicide attack against a Barkhane patrol in Gao today ... was 4 civilians dead and 31 seriously injured,” Mali’s Security Ministry said on Twitter.

Barkhane is the name of the near 4,000-strong French force stationed in its former colonies across the Sahel region.

French army spokesman Patrik Steiger said four French Barkhane soldiers were wounded during the explosion, which occurred close to three French vehicles. Mali’s Security Ministry previously said eight French soldiers were wounded.

A spokesman for Mali’s Defence Ministry, Boubacar Diallo, said a car drove into a joint Barkhane-Malian army patrol.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack. But violence by Islamist militants has spread across the sparsely populated Sahel in recent years, slowly taking back control lost when French forces knocked back an uprising by Tuareg rebels and Islamists in 2013.

Western powers have provided funding to a regional force made up of soldiers from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania combating jihadists. But the so-called G5 force has been hobbled by delays disbursing the money and poor coordination between the five countries.

French President Emmanuel Macron, who last year complained that G5 was taking too long to set up, is due in Mauritania on Monday to discuss security in the region.

U.N. says Malian forces executed 12 civilians at a market

June 26, 2018  22H:04  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Rashida Adjani and Biodun Iginla, BBC News and Reuters, Bamako

BAMAKO  - Malian forces involved in the fight against Islamist militants in the West African nation executed 12 civilians in retaliation after a soldier was killed in an attack in May, the U.N. mission in Mali said on Tuesday.

Mali’s fight against jihadist groups in the center and north of the country has been marred by a series of alleged abuses, some of which the government has acknowledged.

Those abuses, as well as tit-for-tat attacks by rival ethnic groups, have fueled surging violence across vast swathes of Mali, raising doubts about the government’s ability to organize a presidential election scheduled for July 29.

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The U.N. mission in Mali, MINUSMA, said in a statement that its investigation had concluded that Malian troops from the G5 Sahel - a joint task force with Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso and Mauritania - “summarily and/or arbitrarily executed 12 civilians at the Boulkessy cattle market” on May 19.

It said that the report has been handed to Mali’s government and that Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the head of MINUSMA, “calls on the Malian authorities to ensure that the investigation underway is carried out as quickly as possible”.

There was no immediate comment from Malian authorities. ​

Mali’s government said last week that some of its soldiers were implicated in gross rights violations after the discovery of mass graves in central Mali. Rights groups have alleged widespread abuses, but the government has rejected those claims.

Suspected jihadists kill over 30 Tuaregs in Mali

28 April 2018 - 21H27  GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Rashida Adjani and Biodun Iginla, France24, Bamako, Mali

 
 
 
 
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BAMAKO - 

Suspected jihadists killed more than 30 Tuaregs, including women and children, on Mali's northeastern border with Niger, several sources said Saturday as the second such attack in two days stoked fears of widespread unrest.

The former Tuareg rebel group MSA and tribal leaders said the massacre occurred Friday, a day after another attack by gunmen on motorbikes had left 12 people dead outside the town of Anderamboukane, which is also in the same area.

"There have been 43 deaths in two days, all civilians, from the same community," tribal leader Sidigui Ag Hamadi told us at France24 from the regional capital Menaka.

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"Our fighters are destroying their bases and wiping them out. They are targeting innocent civilians," he added, saying he viewed the bloodletting as a reprisal for attacks on jihadists by armed Tuareg groups.

The MSA also put the death toll from the two attacks in the villages of Aklaz and Awakassa at 43, saying all the victims were from the Idaksahak pastoralist Berber group.

The group urged the governments of Mali and Niger to take steps to ensure that "an immediate end is put to these abominable crimes" and added that it would "not give in to any intimidation."

Menaka governor Daouda Maiga urged caution regarding the death toll until official observers had arrived on the scene.

"There are various versions, but I know there are women and children among the victims, as well as elderly," Maiga told AFP, while adding he would await the observers' return to Bamako.

- Fear of reprisals -

Local people had been fearful of reprisals by jihadists who suffered major losses in recent attacks in the region over recent weeks, Menaka official Attaye Ag Ossadki told us at France24.

"But nobody imagined that they would kill civilians in this way," he said.

Two weeks ago, the UN's MINUSMA peacekeeping operation said they had received "very serious" information that "summary executions of at least 95 people" had occurred during anti-jihadist operations in the northeastern Menaka region carried out by "a coalition of armed groups" including MSA and Gatia.

Both groups flatly denied any involvement.

France intervened militarily in Mali in 2013 to help government forces drive Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists out of the north.

But large tracts of the country remain lawless despite a peace accord signed with ethnic Tuareg leaders in mid-2015 aimed at isolating the jihadists. The violence has also spilled over into both Burkina Faso and Niger.

French military sources announced 30 deaths in the troubled region after an April 1 confrontation near the Mali border between a French paratroop detachment fighting alongside Malian forces and some 60 jihadists.

The French military said the jihadist group Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) is using the border region as a haven.

The former Tuareg rebel group CMA on Saturday regretted the "spiralling violence in the Menaka region (which) is generally affecting civilian populations" and condemned what it called "abominable and inhuman acts."

The CMA urged political and military groups in the region to take steps to ensure civilian safety.

 

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BREAKING: Suspected jihadists stormed a tourist resort near Bamako, Mali

18 June 2017 - 22H40 GMT/UTC/ZULU TIME

by Rashida Adjani and Biodun Iginla, France24, Bamako

 
 
 
 
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© AFP/File / by Serge DANIEL | In November 2015, gunmen took guests and staff hostage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in a siege that left at least 20 people dead, including 14 foreigners

BAMAKO - 

Suspected jihadists crying "Allahu Akbar" stormed a tourist resort popular with foreigners on the edge of the Malian capital Bamako on Sunday, briefly seizing hostages and leaving at least two people dead.

The assault on the Kangaba Le Campement resort comes after a similar strike less than two years ago on a luxury hotel in Bamako, which lies in the south of the troubled country.

Security forces battled the gunmen at the site, with nearby residents reporting hearing shots while smoke billowed into the air, with at least one building ablaze.

"It is a jihadist attack. Malian special forces intervened and about 20 hostages have been released," Security Minister Salif Traore told us at France24.  

"Unfortunately for the moment there are two dead, including a Franco-Gabonese."

An official from the security ministry confirmed earlier that Malian special forces, backed up by UN soldiers and troops from a French counter-terrorism force, "have sealed off the area and are in the process of organising operations" against the attackers.

The landlocked west African country has been fighting a jihadist insurgency for several years, with Islamist fighters roaming the north and centre of Mali.

- 'Increased threat of attacks' -

Several people rescued at Kangaba said assailants had shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greatest), although no group has yet claimed responsibility.

The US embassy in Bamako had warned earlier this month "of a possible increased threat of attacks against Western diplomatic missions, places of worship, and other locations in Bamako where Westerners frequent".

In November 2015, gunmen took guests and staff hostage at the luxury Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in a siege that left at least 20 people dead, including 14 foreigners.

That attack was claimed by Al-Qaeda's North African affiliate Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

In March the same year, a grenade and gun attack on La Terrasse nightclub in Bamako killed five people, including foreigners.

The Kangaba, located on the eastern edge of Bamako, boasts accommodation in hut-style rooms, as well as restaurants and swimming pools, according to its website.

- State of emergency -

A state of emergency has been renewed several times since the Radisson Blu attack, most recently in April when it was extended for six months, but attacks are continuing.

In 2012 Mali's north fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda who hijacked an ethnic Tuareg-led rebel uprising, though the Islamists were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013.

But jihadists have continued to mount numerous attacks on civilians and the army, as well as on French and UN forces still stationed there.

The unrest has continued despite a 2015 peace deal between the government and Tuareg-led rebels offering partial autonomy to the north.

Sunday's attack is the latest in a series of high-profile assaults in north and and west Africa, targeting locals and tourists.

In January 2016, 30 people were killed, including many foreigners, in an attack on a top Burkina Faso hotel and a nearby restaurant in the capital Ouagadougou. AQIM claimed the assault, saying the gunmen were from the Al-Murabitoun group of Algerian extremist Mokhtar Belmokhtar.

In March 2016, at least 14 civilians and two special forces troops were killed when gunmen stormed the Ivorian beach resort of Grand-Bassam, which was also claimed by AQIM.

The United Nations has a 12,000-strong force in Mali known as MINUSMA, which began operations in 2013.

It has been targeted constantly by jihadists, with dozens of peacekeepers killed, including five on Saturday.

France also has 4,000 soldiers in its Bakhane force in five countries -- Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso -- all of which are threatened by the jihadist threat across their porous borders.