Armed fighters with a suspected affiliation to the ISIL (ISIS) group killed 17 Malian soldiers and four civilians during an attack over the weekend in the country’s south, Mali’s army has said.
Nine soldiers were also reported missing and vehicles and equipment were destroyed as a result of the attack on Sunday near the town of Tessit, which sits in a strategic border zone between Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the Malian army said in a statement on Monday.
It added that there was “an unknown number of dead and injured carried away by the attackers,” and that the death toll from the attack was provisional and likely to change.
“On 07 August 2022 around 3pm (15:00 GMT), the army units of Tessit … responded vigorously to a complex and coordinated attack by armed terrorist groups, presumably from ISGS [Islamic State in the Greater Sahara] and benefiting from drone and artillery support,” the army’s statement said.
Credit: Aljazeera.com
