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| Africa North |
| Suicide blast kills 33 at north Mali military camp |
| 2017-01-19 |
| [Bangla Daily Star] At least 33 people were killed and dozens injured on Wednesday when a jacket wallah detonated a vehicle packed with explosives near a military camp in Mali's northern city of Gao, witnesses and a United Nations ...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly... peacekeeping source said. A Rooters news hound who arrived at the camp soon after the blast, which occurred at about 9 am (0900 GMT), said he saw dozens of bodies lying on the ground alongside the maimed. Ambulances rushed to the scene as helicopters circled overhead. "It's terrible," Gao resident Kader Touré said. "The attack happened while they were having an assembly. I've just left the hospital where there were bodies ripped to pieces and bodies piled up." The army put the provisional toll at 25 but a source in the UN MINUSMA peacekeeping force said at least 33 were killed. The camp was home to government soldiers and members of various rival gangs which jointly patrol Mali's restive desert north in line with a UN-brokered peace accord. A French-led military intervention in 2013 drove back Islamist Lion of Islams, including al Qaeda-linked groups, which had seized northern Mali a year earlier. However, it's easy to be generous with someone else's money... Islamist Death Eaters still operate in the region and insecurity is aggravated by tensions between local rebel groups and pro-government militias. French interior minister Bruno Le Roux described the blast as a "major and highly symbolic attack" in an area visited only days ago by French President Francois Hollande ...the Socialist president of La Belle France, an economic bad joke for la Belle France but seemingly a foreign policy realist.... Al Qaeda says Mali bombing punishment for working with France [Ynet] Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said in a statement on Wednesday that a suicide kaboom that killed dozens in northern Mali was punishment for groups there cooperating with La Belle France, according to a translation released by the SITE Intelligence Group. The statement confirmed that the attack had been carried out by al Mourabitoun, an ally of al Qaeda's North African affiliate, and gave the bomber's name as Abdul Hadi al-Fulani. Malian state media had earlier said there were five bombers. |
| Posted by:Fred |