Assault on Mali Military Training Camp Raises Security Risks

The army reported an attack on a military training center in Mali’s capital early Tuesday.

Col. Marima Sagara, deputy director of the army’s communications division, said the army had received reports of an attack on a gendarme training facility in Bamako but had no further details. An Associated Press reporter heard two explosions and observed smoke rising in the distance. The training institution is situated on the outskirts of the city.

It was not obvious who the attackers were, how many there were, or whether the situation was under control.

For more than a decade, Mali and its neighbors Burkina Faso and Niger have been fighting an insurgency fought by armed groups, some of whom are affiliated with al-Qaida and the Islamic State.

Following military coups in all three countries in recent years, the ruling juntas evacuated French personnel and instead relied on Russian mercenary units for protection.

Attacks in central and northern Mali are intensifying. In July, al-Qaida ambushed a caravan of about 50 Russian mercenaries, killing them.

The mercenaries had been battling largely Tuareg rebels alongside Mali’s army when their convoy was forced to flee into Islamist territory and ambushed south of Tinzaouaten commune.

AP