The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for deadly attacks on the Malian army and a French army convoy in northeastern Mali. The statement by the Daesh was issued on an ISIS-affiliated website where the group said they attacked killed the soldiers in Indelimane in Mali’s volatile Menaka region near the border with Niger.
The group claimed that they killed 70 Malian soldiers despite a statement by the Malian government claiming that 53 soldiers and one civilian were killed in the said attack. The ISIS group said it wounded dozens of others, destroyed several vehicles and seized weapons, ammunition and vehicles. The attack was the ISIS group’s second major assault against Mali’s armed forces in a month.
The new violence is likely to further raise tensions in the capital, Bamako, where military families have already protested in the streets. They say that soldiers are not being given the resources needed to confront an array of jihadist groups. The violence occurred a month after 41 soldiers were killed and 20 others went missing during two attacks on Malian soldiers taking part in a regional counterterrorism force.
Malian soldiers have suffered heavy casualties in the past from jihadists that are allied to ISIS and al Qaeda in the past years and as such the said attacks are part of a fresh wave of attacks by the terror organization.
