Two civilians, peacekeeper killed in Mali rocket attack: UN
1. Two civilians, peacekeeper killed in Mali rocket attack: UN
Militants attack UN as Mali hunts jihadist nightclub killers - Yahoo News
Bamako (AFP) - A peacekeeper and two young children died Sunday as militants shelled a UN base
in northern Mali, heightening protection fears as police hunted jihadists who launched a deadly
Bamako nightclub assault.
The UN's MINUSMA force stated extra than 30 rockets were fired at its barracks in the rebel
bastian of Kidal from five:40am (0540 GMT).
"The moment the source of the shooting was established, MINUSMA force soldiers right away
returned fire two kilometres (one.two miles) from the camp, close to six:00 am," the force mentioned
in a statement.
"An initial assessment exposed the death of a MINUSMA soldier and that eight soldiers were
wounded. The rockets also hit Kidal citizens outdoors the camp and two deaths... were counted."
The force explained in an update on Twitter that the victims had been small children and that 3
civilians had also been injured.
A MINUSMA supply informed AFP they were members of the nomadic Arab Kunta tribe, which is
spread across the Saharan regions of Mali, Algeria, Mauritania and Niger.
Their encampment close to the UN base was hit by stray rockets as the attack received underway,
the supply mentioned.
Sources inside the force also explained the slain peacekeeper was Chadian, like the bulk of
personnel at the base.
It was not instantly clear who was accountable, even though Kidal is the cradle of northern Mali's
Tuareg separatist motion, which has launched numerous uprisings from the region since the 1960s.
See gallery Policemen stand close to the La Terrasse
restaurant -- seen in the backround with the blue curtains -- i ...
Tuareg and Arab militias -- loyalist and anti-government -- have forged a peace agreement with the
Malian government formulated earlier this month in Algiers, though several rebel groups are
however to sign.
2. "MINUSMA strongly condemns these heinous acts of terror whose sole purpose is to thwart all
ongoing efforts to establish lasting peace in Mali," the force mentioned.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other jihadist groups also carry out operations in Kidal,
including the 2013 murders of French journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon.
- 'West insulted our prophet' -
In Bamako, police in bulletproof vests patrolled the area in which a masked gunman had burst into
La Terrasse, a well-known venue among expats, spraying automated gunfire and throwing grenades
early Saturday.
Al-Murabitoun, a jihadist group run by top Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, has claimed duty
for the attack, which left a Frenchman, a Belgian and 3 Malians dead.
It said in an audio recording carried by Mauritanian information company Al-Akbar the operation
was carried out "to avenge our prophet towards the unbelieving West which has insulted and
mocked him".
Motor vehicle checks had been stepped up on the three bridges above the Niger river as detectives
centered on a black four-wheel drive apparently applied by the nightclub attacker and an
accomplice.
See gallery The La Terrasse bar restaurant that was
attacked in Bamako, Mali. on March seven, 2015, wherever five peopl ...
"We are unable to say a lot a lot more at this stage but there are clues about the vehicle employed to
transport the writer of the crimes committed in Bamako," a police source informed AFP.
MINUSMA, which has close to ten,000 personnel in Mali, explained it has manufactured
investigators and crimes scene experts accessible to the authorities.
Police earlier announced they had arrested two Malians soon after but later mentioned the pair have
been not involved, describing them as "not terrorists, but bandits".
The French victim has been named as thirty-yr-old Fabien Guyomard, a single man with no young
children who had lived in Bamako because 2007 and worked at US development organization ICMS
Africa.
Mali's prime minister and president visited eight individuals who have been staying treated in
hospital overnight, including two Swiss weapons experts advising the Malian government.
3. The pair had been in a vital but stable issue after getting hit by bullets, the Swiss military stated in
Geneva.
"We ought to remain vigilant, the population need to report people today behaving suspiciously,"
Premier Modibo Keita informed reporters.
- 'Cowardly attack' -
In the moments right after the attack an AFP correspondent witnessed the French victim being
taken by stretcher out of the venue whilst the bodies of the police officer, a guard and the Belgian
could be noticed outdoors.
"They reportedly shouted 'death to whites' on coming into the restaurant... It sounds like an attack
towards the presence of Europeans," a diplomatic source mentioned.
French President Francois Hollande led the global outcry, condemning the "cowardly assault" and
vowing to meet Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to give Paris's enable to its former colony.
Mali's vast desert north is riven by ethnic rivalries and an Islamist insurgency.
Jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda controlled an spot of desert the dimension of Texas for a lot more than
nine months right up until a French-led military intervention in 2013 that partly drove them from the
area.
But day-to-day lifestyle in the capital, a city of 1.8 million, has been largely unaffected by the
northern conflict.
"It's the initial assault of this type in Bamako," mentioned Pierre Boilley, an analyst specialising in
sub-Saharan Africa.
Unrest, Conflicts & WarPolitics & GovernmentMaliBamakonorthern Mali
