Five die in failed suicide bombing attacks in Mali

Reuters/Bamako

At least five suicide bombers died in northern Mali yesterday in attacks aimed at Malian and Nigerien troops which failed to inflict serious casualties on their targets, a spokesman for Mali’s army said.

One of the towns hit was Gossi, the furthest south Al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels have struck in a guerrilla war launched against Malian and regional forces since the rebels were driven from their former strongholds in a French-led offensive this year.

The attacks have had limited success so far but threaten to undermine international calls for elections to be held across Mali in July although security is not yet fully restored to a zone that was occupied by Islamists last year.

The suicide raids took place nearly simultaneously between 4am and 5am in Menaka and Gossi, near Gao.

“The first attack targeted Nigerien soldiers in Menaka. A car bomb entered the (military) camp, but the soldiers ... destroyed the vehicle, which exploded,” Lieutenant-Colonel Souleymane Maiga told Reuters.

“At the same time in Gossi, three suicide bombers on foot attacked a checkpoint. Again the soldiers ... shot them. The three bombers were killed,” he said.

As the men exchanged fire with soldiers, a fourth member of the group entered a nearby military camp and blew himself up, slightly wounding two soldiers, a second military source said.

A bus driver passing through Gossi, 150km southwest of Gao, told Reuters he saw dismembered body parts strewn along the road, which links Gao and the capital Bamako.

Hours after the attacks, France’s President Francois Hollande and Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou reiterated calls for elections due in July to be held across the country.

“No part of Mali should be deprived of the possibility of organising an election,” Hollande told journalists.

For this to happen, security forces will have to fend off further attacks by militants, who have struck in Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu – northern Mali’s three main towns – and resolve a stand-off in Kidal, which is still occupied by a mix of Tuareg-led separatist and Islamist rebels.

Bamako has said an offensive on the town is imminent but rights groups warn such an operation could lead to reprisal killings. Diplomats say they are seeking a solution that will allow elections to take place in Kidal and then talks organised between the rebels and a new elected government.

Thousands of regional troops have been sent to Mali in the wake of the largely successful French offensive.

Paris is looking to withdraw thousands of troops from its former colony and hand over security duties to a 12,600-strong UN peacekeeping force to be established from July 1.

Underscoring Mali’s needs, the government will next week ask donors for nearly 2bn euros ($2.6bn) to help rebuild the country and prevent rebels again taking advantage of a weak state.

In a document drawn up for an international donors’ conference in Brussels next Wednesday, the Malian government said it would be able to finance just over half of a 4.34bn-euro plan for this year and next, but needed help with the rest.

“The international community is greatly needed to finance and implement the plan, up to a level of 1.96bn euros,” the government said in the document, posted in French on the conference website. “To get out of the crisis and to begin lasting development, Mali needs and depends on the technical and financial support of the international community.”

The plan sets out 12 priorities, including keeping the peace, organising credible elections and fighting corruption.

Next week’s conference, organised by France and the European Union, will aim to raise at least $600mn to $700mn, diplomatic sources said.

Due to attend are Mali’s interim president, Dioncounda Traore, a number of other African leaders, Hollande and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Donors who suspended assistance to Mali following a military coup in March 2012 have resumed budget support and project aid.

The EU has unblocked 250mn euros in frozen development aid and Paris has restored 150mn euros, including a 10mn euro emergency assistance fund to rebuild key services such as water and electricity.