A policeman and two civilians were wounded when Mali’s security forces repelled an attack near the capital Bamako on Sunday, the army said. The attackers targeted a post in Dialakoroba, Koulikoro region, around 50 kilometres (30 miles) east of Bamako, at 01:40 GMT, the army said on social media.
The police officers on duty “fought back fiercely and vigorously, then defeated the terrorists”, it said. The army said one of the attackers was “neutralised” as the rest fled. Since 2012, Mali has been in the grip of a deep security crisis that began in the north and has spread to the centre of the country as well as to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. Mali’s junta, which seized power in 2020, has made sovereignty a key priority.
France, Mali’s former colonial power and ally in the jihadist struggle, fell out with the junta after it wove close ties with the Kremlin and has pulled out its forces out of the country. The 13,000-member UN peacekeeping force MINUSMA, which first deployed to Mali in 2013, is to leave the country by the end of the year at the junta’s request.
