Bamako, MALI
Malian troops
backed by foreign allies on Wednesday launched a hunt for scores of soldiers
listed as missing after one of the deadliest attacks in a seven-year-old
jihadist insurgency.
At least 25 troops
were killed after militants aboard heavily-armed vehicles raided two military camps at
Boulkessy and Mondoro near the border with Burkina Faso, according to
a provisional toll.
Fifteen jihadists were killed in the raids, according to
government figures, which began early Monday and were quelled more than a day
later.
Around 60 soldiers
were listed as missing -- 78, according to a security source -- but late
Wednesday the Malian army
said 11 had returned to their base.
It is
unknown whether the others have been killed or captured.
"Operations
to secure the area are under way with Mali's partners," a Malian military
source said.
"Our
objective is to consolidate our presence in Boulkessy and to focus on soldiers
of whom we are currently without news."
President
Ibrahim Boubacar Keita declared three days of national mourning would begin on
Thursday, according to a government statement.
Hundreds of
angry youths and wives of soldiers demonstrated outside a military camp in the
capital Bamako late Wednesday.
Some
demonstrators burned tyres to block off the avenue.
"We
came here because the government is not telling the truth about the number of
dead," a woman demonstrator told AFP.
"It's
our husbands, the red berets, who are at Boulkessy."
"My
father is a soldier, he's at Boulkessy, and I haven't any news of him,"
said 15-year-old Ali Oumar Diakite. "They're lying to us. The army is
under-equipped."
The losses
are a crushing blow to Mali's armed forces, which are flailing in the face of a
jihadist revolt that has spread from the arid north to its centre, an
ethnically mixed and volatile region.
The
operation is also a humiliation for the so-called G5 Sahel force -- a
much-trumpeted initiative under which five countries decided to create a joint
5,000-man anti-terror force -- and for France, which is committed to shoring up
the fragile region.
The losses
symbolise "the escalating activities of violent extremist groups (in the
Sahel) with more and more ambitious targets," said Baba Dakono of the
Institute for Security Studies (ISS), a think tank based in Senegal.
The attacks
were eventually subdued with the help of Malian special forces and foreign
allies, including French warplanes and helicopters.
The
jihadists made off with a large quantity of arms, ammunition and equipment --
local media stated about 20 vehicles were captured, including some mounted with
machine-guns.
But French
Defence Minister Florence Parly hailed the Malian army for quickly dispatching
units to regain control of the camps.
"The
determination of these units has helped restore a delicate and compromised
situation and inflict losses on terrorists," she said.
According
to an army report seen by AFP, two army helicopters and about a dozen vehicles
were burned in the attack on Boulkessy.
The camp
there -- which housed a Malian battalion that was part of the G5 Sahel -- was
destroyed.
The G5
Sahel secretariat said the assailants were members of Ansarul Islam, a jihadist
group accused of multiple attacks in northern Burkina Faso.
Other
sources were unable to confirm this.
Jihadists
lost control of northern Mali after French military intervention, but regrouped
to carry out hit-and-run raids and roadmine attacks -- classic tactics by a
mobile guerrilla force.
They have
also moved on to the country's central region, where they have inflamed
long-standing resentments between ethnic groups, analysts say.
On March
17, the Malian army lost nearly 30 men in an attack on a camp in Dioura, also
in the troubled central region.
That
assault came on the heels of a massacre of 160 Fulani (also called Peul)
villagers -- a bloodbath that led to a military reshuffle and the government's
resignation.
UN chief
Antonio Guterres has been pounding the drum for help for Sahel states, among the
poorest in the world, in their struggle against the mobile, well-armed and
ruthless jihadists.
On
September 14, the West African regional group ECOWAS announced a billion-dollar
plan to help fund the military operations of the nations involved.
Full details
will be presented at a summit in December. -
AFP
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