adminBAMAKO. — Two children and a UN peacekeeper were killed in a rocket attack early on Sunday on a UN base in Mali’s north-eastern city of Kidal, the United Nations mission in Mali said.
More than 30 rockets and shells hit the UN base, spokesperson Olivier Salgado said. Another 14 people were wounded. The peacekeeper was from Chad, and 11 of the wounded were peacekeepers, the spokesperson for the UN secretary-general said in a statement.
The attack came a day after a masked gunman sprayed bullets into a restaurant and bar in Mali’s capital, Bamako, killing five people, including a Frenchman and a Belgian.
A group formed by the elusive and dreaded Algerian extremist leader Moktar Belmoktar claimed responsibility for the rare burst of violence in the capital.
Belmoktar said it was a reprisal attack “against the heathen West which has offended our prophet” and in revenge for the killing of a leader of the Al Mourabitoun group in a French-Malian military operation.
Al Mourabitoun, or The Sentinels, is a northern Mali jihadi group allied with al-Qaeda. The claim of responsibility was carried on the Mauritanian news website Al-Akhbar, which often receives messages from Malian extremists. — AP.
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