Gunmen attack United Nations base, army checkpoint in Mali’s Timbuktu

A military source at the site said Nigerian policemen at the site had managed to flee and were never taken hostage.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on a United Nations police base in the northern Mali city of Timbuktu, in a statement monitored by the SITE Intelligence group on Saturday. “Niang, a Malian officer who was part of the counter-offensive operation on the Minusma base [UN peacekeeping force in Mali] died as a result of a false maneuver with his tank”, a Malian security source told Anadolu Agency.

“The operation against assailants in the camp premises ended”.

Mission spokesman Olivier Salgado said Friday that one person who was injured has been transferred to a health care facility.

A base in Timbuktu occupied by personnel of the UN Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) has been rocked by a vehicle bomb in an apparent terrorist attack.

The Malian army checkpoint was attacked by gunman simultaneously at the same time in the city’s Kabara neighborhood, located near the airport. Further information on casualties weren’t immediately available.

Militants have expanded their attacks in the region, killing 20 in a raid on a hotel in Mali’s capital in November and 30 in an attack in the capital of Burkina Faso last month.

Mali has been wracked by violence in recent years, including an insurgency by Islamist and ethnic Tuareg groups that prompted French forces to intervene in the country in 2013.

In a sign of the dangers, a Swiss missionary living in the city was kidnapped last month.