A jihadist group linked to al-Qaeda has come out to claim responsibility for an attack that wounded members of the UN’s peacekeeping force in Mali, which is pulling out of the country, monitors said.
Africa Today News, New York reports that no fewer than four members of MINUSMA were hurt on Sunday when they came under attack on a road in northern Mali between Timbuktu and Ber, according to the claim by the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM) monitored by SITE.
The GSIM, on its Al-Zallaqa propaganda outlet, also claimed on Monday an attack on Sunday against a Mali army position near Korioume, south of Timbuktu, in which a soldier was killed, the US monitoring group said.
Africa Today News, New York reports that MINUSMA which is the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali — is one of the UN’s biggest and most perilous peacekeeping operations.
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After terrorist and separatist rebellions erupted in northern Mali the previous year, its deployment got underway in 2013.
However, the 13,000-man mission is expected to leave Mali by year’s end under pressure from the country’s ruling junta; this will happen after French forces leave in 2022.
The country’s central city of Ogossagou served as the starting point for MINUSMA’s retreat from its dozen sites in early August.
Following the attack on Sunday, MINUSMA announced it will leave its post at Ber earlier than planned ‘due to the deteriorating security situation in the area (and) the high risks’ facing its personnel.
It said the MINUSMA troops were attacked twice and three wounded peacekeepers had been evacuated to Timbuktu for treatment.
The future of the base at Ber has heightened tensions between the Malian army and former rebels in the region.
The Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) — an alliance of predominantly ethnic Touareg groups — says moves by the junta to take over the vacated base would breach the terms of a ceasefire reached in 2014.
The CMA signed a peace deal with Mali’s then-civilian government in 2015, but the pact has come under increasing strain since a coup in 2020 that toppled the elected president, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.
The CMA say their forces in Ber were attacked on Friday by government troops and paramilitaries from Russia’s Wagner group.
The army, for its part, says its troops in the area have been fighting jihadists — six troops in a unit that were to deploy at the base were killed last Friday in fighting armed Islamists, it says.