BAMAKO – Three were killed after their patrol vehicle hit a landmine on Monday in a forest in central Mali, Defence Minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly said.
Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militant group al-Mourabitoun on Monday claimed responsibility for a hotel siege in central Mali at the weekend in which 17 people died.
“Today again, you lost three brothers in arms to a land mine explosion,” Coulibaly told Malian soldiers in Sevare, where he was visiting following the weekend attack.
The blast took place a forest near the town of Diafarabe about 600 km (372) northeast of the capital in the Mopti region, killing three soldiers and wounding three others.
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“The soldiers were informed by villagers of the presence of armed men near a village and the soldiers went over to investigate,” Souleymane Dembele, a Malian defence spokesman said.
Mali’s northern region has seen a resurgence of a number of attacks by armed groups as well as Islamist militants who briefly held the area until they were scattered by a French military intervention in 2013.
Malian authorities also blame a new armed group called the Massina Liberation Front for the growing number of attacks in the central Mopti region. (Reuters)