11 Malian Soldiers Killed Near Burkina Border

Eleven Malian soldiers were killed on Sunday in an attack on an army post near the border with Burkina Faso, a defense ministry spokesperson has confirmed.

“The post was attacked between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. in Boulkessi, and there were 11 killed and five wounded,” Colonel Abdoulaye Sidibe was quoted as saying by Africa News.

He further confirmed that reinforcements have been deployed to the area to secure the place. It is not yet clear which group is responsible for the latest attacks. The military did not give further details about whether the assailants had been apprehended.

Insurgent groups, including Al-Qaeda, have recently been launching attacks on military positions in Mali. The Ansar Dine group has also stepped up attacks on areas previously considered out of their reach.

Al-Qaeda’s North African ally Al-Mourabitoun in January claimed a suicide bomb attack on a military camp in northern Mali that killed up to 60 people and wounded more than 100 others, which it said was revenge against groups cooperating with French forces in the region.

The border area between Burkina Faso and Mali has recently become a hotbed of insurgent attacks, as two police stations in Burkina Faso were attacked last week in the northern province of Soum, near the Malian border.

In almost two months, it was the second time that part of the country has been attacked. The last one, also in Soum, resulted in the death of a dozen soldiers.

France intervened in Mali in 2013 to drive back terrorist groups that seized the desert north a year earlier and maintains a regional operation aimed at stamping out insurgents.