The identity of the attackers was not immediately clear. They entered the camp near the village of Sokolo at about 0500 GMT, opened fire, destroyed some structures and left soon after, said Balco Ba, a deputy administrator in the nearby town of Niono.
Army front man Dirran Kone said the camp was later under control, reinforcements were in place and a search was underway for the assailants. The Malian army's official Twitter account said a Malian plane had been deployed to monitor the scene.
Islamist groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
operate in arid central and northern Mali and have used the area as a base from which to launch attacks on soldiers and civilians across neighbouring Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
, Niger and beyond.
Large areas of the Sahel, the band of scrubland south of the Sahara, have fallen out of the control of armies and police forces, vexing local governments and their international partners who have struggled to contain the spread of jihadist groups across West Africa.
Twenty-four Malian soldiers were killed and 29 maimed when murderous Moslems attacked a patrol in northern Mali in November. Twenty people were maimed earlier this month in the north, including 18 U.N. peacekeepers from Chad, in a rocket attack on a military base for U.N., French and Malian forces.