Qatar Chamber chairman Sheikh Khalifa bin Jassim al-Thani lauded Mali as a “promising” investment destination during a meeting with Prime Minister Choguel Maiga, who called on Qatari investors to explore business opportunities in the West African country.

Officials of the Qatar Businessmen Association (QBA) and Shugel Maiga, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Mali, held a recent meeting to discuss investment opportunities available in Mali and Qatar.

Mali's former president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who led the West African country from 2013 until he was ousted in a coup in 2020, died at the age of 76 in the capital Bamako on Sunday, his family said.

An Egyptian peacekeeper was killed and four colleagues were seriously injured in improvised explosive attacks on their convoy in Mali's volatile north on Saturday, the United Nations said.

A car bomb in northern Mali has wounded 15 UN peacekeepers, the United Nations said on Friday, in the latest attack in the war-torn Sahel state.

Assimi Goita, the Malian colonel who has overthrown two presidents in the past nine months, said he would oversee a transition toward democratic elections as he was sworn in as interim president on Monday.

At least 11 Tuareg civilians have been killed near Menaka in Mali's troubled northeast, a pro-government coalition of armed groups announced Saturday.

West African leaders will meet in Ghana on Sunday to discuss a response to Mali's second coup in nine months, with the new president Colonel Assimi Goita attending.

West African officials were on Tuesday heading for Mali, plunged into crisis after the military detained the president, prime minister and defence minister in what international bodies called an "attempted coup".

Two soldiers died in a militant attack in central Mali on Friday, several sources said, with UN peacekeepers fighting off gunmen in a separate incident towards the Algeria border.

A 2019 crash involving two French defence helicopters in conflict-torn Mali which killed 13 soldiers was due to miscommunication during a military operation, an official report published on Saturday said.

Suspected militants attacked several Malian and foreign military bases with mortars and rockets in the north of the country on Monday, military sources said.