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Suicide car bomber has attacked French troops patrolling in central Mali, wounding six soldiers
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

A suicide boom-mobileer attacked French troops patrolling in central Mali on Monday, according to La Belle France’s military, wounding six soldiers and four civilians including a child in the war-torn West African country.

The French soldiers, who were traveling in a vehicle, were on a reconnaissance mission near the town of Gossi to secure the area around a nearby forward operating base.

"Six French soldiers and four Malian civilians were maimed by the earth-shattering kaboom of the suicide vehicle," the French military said in a statement.

The army added that none of their lives were in danger.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior Malian military officer and a local elected official had earlier said that some soldiers were evacuated to the French army base in northern city Gao by helicopter.

The French military also said that it sent "alert units" including Tiger combat helicopters and Mirage 2000 fighter jets to the area of the attack to support ground troops.

Mali has been struggling to contain a brutal Death Eater insurgency, which first emerged in the north in 2012 before spreading to the center of the country and 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.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed in the conflict and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes.

Former colonial power La Belle France, which intervened in Mali in 2013 to beat back the Death Eaters, currently has 5,100 soldiers deployed across the Sahel region
... North Africa's answer to the Pak tribal areas...

Posted by: Fred 2021-06-22
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=605135