Rocket attack kills 3, wounds 14, at UN Mali base
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Three people were killed and 14 wounded in a rocket attack early yesterday on a UN base in Mali’s northeastern city of Kidal, said the United Nations mission in Mali.
More than 30 rockets and shells hit the base in Kidal at about 5:40am, said the UN mission. The attack killed a UN soldier and two civilians and 14 people were wounded, said a UN spokesman.
The UN forces returned fire at about 6 am. It said the rocket attack was launched from about 2 kilometers from the camp.
The attack was not immediately claimed but the Islamic extremist group Ansar Dine claimed a similar attack against UN peacekeepers in Kidal in September 2014.
The rocket attack on the UN camp in Kidal comes a day after Islamic extremists attacked a restaurant in the capital, Bamako, killing five people, including a French person and a Belgian. Bamako is 1,500 kilometers southwest of Kidal.
A masked gunman sprayed bullets early Saturday in La Terrasse, a restaurant and bar that is popular with foreigners. Al Mourabitoun, or The Sentinels, a northern Mali jihadist group allied with al-Qaida, claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the Mauritanian news website Al-Akhbar. The website often receives messages from Malian extremists.
Nine people were wounded in the attack including two experts for the UN mission, said the UN stabilization mission in Mali. The two are Swiss soldiers and were flown to Senegal for treatment, said the Swiss Defense Ministry.
In 2012 Islamic extremists seized control of northern Mali with the aim of imposing Shariah law in the country.
French forces led a military operation in early 2013 that largely expelled the al-Qaida-linked extremists from a vast area in northeastern Mali. The military operation there continues. Violence has been rare in Bamako despite the continued upheaval in the north.
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