Jihad in Mali: Six Dead in Islamic Bombing Attack on Headquarters of Anti-Terror Task Force Base

Another daily Islamic attack you won’t hear or read about. The enemedia is too busy calling my colleagues and me the “extremists’.

The mainstream media refer to these devout Muslims as ‘suicide bombers’. They are not. They are shaheed – Islam’s holy martyrs. Dying in the cause of jihad.

At least six dead in Mali after attack on regional anti-terror force base

Suicide bomber tried to enter HQ of five-state force fighting jihad in the Sahel, source says

Agence France-Presse in Bamako, Guardian, 29 Jun 2018:

Debris scattered in front of the headquarters of the G5 Sahel anti-terror taskforce in Sévaré. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Islamist militants have attacked the Malian headquarters of a regional anti-terror taskforce, killing six people and leaving many injured, according to a provisional toll.

A suicide bomber tried to penetrate the base at Sévaré in central Mali, according to a security source. A local orange seller, Haoussa Haidara, said “there was a huge blast” followed by exchanges of gunfire. Gunshots could still be heard an hour later.

It is the first attack on the headquarters of the joint G5 force, set up in 2017 to combat jihadist insurgents and criminal groups in the vast, unstable Sahel region of Africa. It came three days before a meeting in Nouakchott, Mauritania, between the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the heads of the G5 Sahel states to discuss progress made by the force.

Six people were killed in the attack, according to a hospital and a military source, giving an interim toll.

“We transported the bodies and the injured to the hospital, but we don’t know whether some of the injured have died in hospital. There are six dead on the ground,” the military source told the news agency Agence France-Presse.

Residents of Sévaré hid inside their homes, according to Bouba Bathily, a trader who sheltered from the gunfire in his house.

Launched with French backing in 2017, the G5 Sahel aims to pool 5,000 troops from five countries – Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. It was projected to be fully up and running in March, but its deployment has been subject to delays and equipment worries.

Suspected jihadists in Mali kill more than 40 in two days of violence

France intervened militarily in Mali in 2013 to help government forces drive al-Qaida-linked jihadists out of the north. But large tracts of the country remain lawless, despite a peace accord signed with ethnic Tuareg leaders in mid-2015 aimed at isolating the jihadists. The violence has spilled over into Burkina Faso and Niger.

Earlier on Friday, the French military headquarters said troops from its so-called Barkhane mission in Mali had killed or captured 15 jihadists on 22 June in a joint operation with local forces.

The clash took place in a woodland area of the Inabelbel region, south-east of Timbuktu, it said in a statement. A group of about 20 jihadists were attacked via helicopters and jet-fighter support after they were spotted by Malian commandos.