"The killings took place in the evening between Wednesday and Thursday with the same modus operandi: assailants on cycle of violence
s who came into the camp, shot at people indiscriminately from close range, then take away their livestock," said a source close to the authorities in Menaka, the region near the Niger border where the attacks happened.The first attack targeted a nomadic camp about 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the region's capital, also called Menaka. Twelve people were killed
In the other attack "gunnies" targeted another camp at Inekar Tadriante, killing five, the source added.
Leaders of the Tuareg nomadic community posted on social networks in recent days of "massacres of civilians" by the 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....
in the Greater Sahara (EIGS), affiliated to the Islamic State group, which operated in the border regions between Mali, Niger and 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...
They put the overall corpse count from the two attacks at 16.
The region has become increasingly
Jihadist fighters took advantage of their rebellion to launch their own offensive, threatening the capital Bamako in the south until a French-led force pushed them back in 2013.
The Tuareg separatists and the government agreed to a peace accord in 2015, but it has yet to be applied.
So now Mali's weak, national government faces both separatist and jihadist insurgencies in the north of the country -- a largely desert region that is all but devoid of state infrastructure.
A recent report by UN Secretary-General António Guterres
...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...said the so-called three-border region with Niger and Burkina Faso had seen a "significant deterioration" in security.