E-MAIL THIS LINK
To: 

Mali Army in Major Clash with Jihadists
[AnNahar] A large contingent of Malian troops, backed by air support, fought Tuesday with jihadist fighters who made an incursion into a military camp in the country's fragile central region, sources said.

Two military posts came under attack at dawn on Monday at Boulkessy and Mondoro, towns near by the border with Burkino Faso.

The assailants at Boulkessy are "suspected members of Ansarul Islam",
...which emerged near the Mali border in December 2016...
said G5 Sahel, a five-nation joint taskforce created in 2014 to try to tackle jihadist violence in the region.

The Malian army has not yet reported an official corpse count, but a local official told AFP that two civilians were rubbed out in Boulkessy.

A military source said that Malian special forces had been active around Boulkessy.

"The fighting continues," the source told AFP.

The source said that air support was bolstering troops in Boulkessy, while reinforcements had left Mondoro.

"We currently have deployed a large amount of resources to take back two positions... in Boulkessy fallen into the hands of terrorists," said another military source.

A local official in a nearby town confirmed that he saw a Malian army helicopter headed towards Boulkessy.

The fate of numerous soldiers caught in the fighting remained uncertain on Tuesday, according to several military sources.

Northern Mali fell into the hands of jihadists in 2012 before the murderous Moslems were forced out by a French-led military intervention.

But much of the region remains chronically unstable and jihadist-led violence has spread to the center of the country, often sparking bloodshed between ethnic groups.

Neighboring Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
and Niger have also been infiltrated by bad boys, at the cost of hundreds of lives.

Ansarul Islam has been accused of numerous attacks in Burkina Faso since emerging in the border region in 2016.

Related: June 2018 Long War Journal article on the formation and personnel of Ansaroul Islam, its evolution from Al Qaeda in North Africa front group Ansar Dine, and strong links with the current AQ-NA conglomerate in Mali/ Burkina Faso: Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM). Ansarul Islam’s current big turban is Abdoul Salam Dicko alias Djaffar.

Posted by: trailing wife 2019-10-02
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=551656