[PULSE.NG] Suspected jihadists killed at least eight people Sunday in a raid on an army camp in central Mali, military and security sources said, warning the toll could rise.
Driving cars and cycle of violence s, the attackers stormed Dioura army camp in the Mopti region at dawn, leaving "many soldiers dead or missing", a military source said.
Separately, a Malian security source spoke of "a heavy toll of at least eight dead".
"There are dead soldiers, others are missing and still others are maimed," he said, but could not confirm reports from local villagers that up to 15 troops had died.
A second military source said the troops had tried to fight off the attackers.
"Our men responded. I saw at least four bodies on the ground. We don't have an exact toll yet but there is a lot of damage," he said.
A foreign security source said local residents estimated at least 15 people had been killed.
President Ibrahim Boubakar Keita, on Twitter, said the Malian people were "united against terrible acts", without giving any corpse count.
Once a beacon of democracy and stability in Africa, Mali in recent years has been dogged by a coup, civil war and Islamist terrorism.
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 councilors 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 Rooters from inside it. Central Mali has in the past few years been overrun by jihadists with links to al Qaeda. 
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