BAMAKO - Gunmen attacked and briefly
seized a Malian army base overnight, killing at least 16
soldiers and destroying five vehicles in central Mali's Mopti
region, two local councillors 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, told Reuters by
telephone from inside it. 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," he 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 towards
the capital Bamako, until a French-led intervention pushed them
back the following year.
Groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State used central and
northern Mali as a launch pad for growing numbers of attacks
across the Sahel region, especially on neighbours 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.
But at the end of last month Koufa appeared in a new
propaganda video mocking French and Malian forces.