BAMAKO — At least five suicide bombers died in northern Mali in attacks aimed at Malian and Nigerien troops which failed to inflict serious casualties on their targets, a spokesman for Mali’s army said.
Reuters
One of the towns hit was Gossi, the furthest south al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels have struck in a guerrilla war launched against Malian and regional forces since the rebels were driven from their former strongholds in a French-led offensive this year.
The attacks have had limited success so far but threaten to undermine international calls for elections to be held across Mali in July, although security is not yet fully restored to a zone that was occupied by Islamists last year.
The suicide raids took place nearly simultaneously between 4 and 5am in Menaka and Gossi, near Gao.
“The first attack targeted Nigerien soldiers in Menaka. A car bomb entered the [military] camp, but the soldiers… destroyed the vehicle, which exploded,” Lieutenant Colonel Souleymane Maiga said.
“At the same time in Gossi, three suicide bombers on foot attacked a checkpoint. Again the soldiers… shot them. The three bombers were killed,” he said.
As the men exchanged fire with soldiers, a fourth member of the group entered a nearby military camp and blew himself up, slightly wounding two soldiers, a second military source said.
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A bus driver passing through Gossi, 150 km southwest of Gao, said he saw dismembered body parts strewn along the road, which links Gao and the capital Bamako.
Hours after the attacks, France’s President Francois Hollande and Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou reiterated calls for elections due in July to be held across the entire country.
“No part of Mali should be deprived of the possibility of organising an election,” Hollande told journalists.
