Unknown attackers fired rockets at a United Nations peacekeeping base in northern Mali on Saturday, killing three people inside, the UN said, in the latest sign that the West African country's extremist insurgency is intensifying.
French troops and the 10,000-strong UN force, known as MINUSMA, are struggling to stabilise the former French colony.
Militants attacked a hotel in the capital Bamako on Nov. 20 and killed 20 people, in their bloodiest attack yet in the country's south.
Desert-based jihadists regularly launch rockets and missiles at northern UN bases, especially around full moons when the lighter nights make it easier to target the camps, although it is rare for the missiles to land inside the walls.
"They fired rockets from around 4 a.m. inside the MINUSMA camp," Olivier Salgado, Deputy Chief of Communication in the peacekeeping mission, told Reuters. "We have three dead and four seriously injured," he said, adding that there were a total of 20 wounded and that medical evacuations were under way from the base in the town of Kidal.
The United Nations later identified the victims as two Guinean peacekeepers and a contractor from Burkina Faso.
"The members of the Security Council called on the Government of Mali to swiftly investigate this attack and bring the perpetrators to justice, and stressed that those responsible for the attack should be held accountable," it said, adding that the attacks may constitute war crimes.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement that he is outraged by the attacks. He added that the attacks will not impede the UN's determination the Malian Government, the signatory parties to the peace agreement, and the people of Mali, in their efforts to achieve lasting peace and stability.
French news agency AFP said that Malian Islamic fundamentalist rebel group Ansar Dine had claimed responsibility for the attack. Ansar Dine is not one of the three Islamic fundamentalist militant groups — al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, its splinter group al Mourabitoun and Massina Liberation Front (MLF) — that claimed last week's attack on the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, where the victims included Russians, Chinese and an American.
Security analysts say the groups could be collaborating.
Jihadist warning
Bursts of gunfire rang out shortly after the rockets landed, as well as mortar fire coming from inside the camp, according to a witness in Kidal.
A security source in northern Mali who wished to remain anonymous said the Kidal camp had received a warning two days before the attack from an unnamed jihadist group.
A local deputy for Kidal, Ahmoudene Ag Ikmasse, also blamed Islamic fundamentalists.
Northern Mali was taken over by Islamist militants, some with links to al-Qaeda, for most of 2012. They were driven out by a French-led military operation a year later, but violence has continued and spread into formerly safe areas in the south.
Mali violence: What we know about the West African country's conflict
Some analysts say the spike in jihadist attacks is designed to disrupt the implementation of a peace deal signed between various northern armed groups and Mali's government in June.
"I want to reiterate that these attacks will not impede the determination of the United Nations to support the Malian people and the peace process," said Mongi Hamdi, UN Special Envoy for the Mali mission.
A French soldier, part of the 3,500-strong Barkhane anti-terrorism force operating across the Sahel region of the Sahara desert, and a UN peacekeeper were killed by land mines this week.
Germany has said it is willing to send up to 650 soldiers to bolster the UN force, which has yet to reach its full strength of 12,680 men and is mostly made of African troops.
Other West African states are also battling Islamist militants. Boko Haram, the leading such group in the region, has this year extended its attacks from Nigeria to neighbouring states of Niger, Cameroon and Chad.
Suspected Boko Haram militants detonated two suicide bombs in a village in northern Cameroon on Saturday, killing at least five people, security sources and an official told Reuters.
- Reuters