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MALI-UNREST
20 killed in suspected jihadist attack in Mali: sources
BAMAKO, May 28, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – Around 20 people including civilians were
killed in a suspected jihadist attack in northeastern Mali near the border
with Niger, sources said.
The deaths came after more than 100 people including many civilians,
particularly from the Fulani and Tuareg communities, died in recent months as
a result of attacks by rival armed groups in the region.
A local official in the town of Talataye — where Saturday’s attack took
place — said late Sunday that the assailants arrived in three vehicles and
on a motorcycle.
Khalil Toure, a teacher, added: “They opened fire on a group of people
resting under a tree, killing five people on the spot and wounding two.”
Jihadists have also ramped up their activities in central Mali in recent
months, targeting domestic and foreign forces in violence once confined to
the country’s north.
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.
The French military has said the jihadist group Islamic State in the
Greater Sahara (ISGS) is using the border region as a haven.
BSS/AFP/FI/1405 hrs