Mali announced on Tuesday that it suffered a loss of approximately ten soldiers in an attack on a camp in the northern city of Gao, which was claimed by jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda. The army, in a statement on its website, stated that a car bomb assault on September 8 resulted in “about ten deaths… among the Malian Armed Forces.”
General Oumar Diarra, the chief of general staff of the armies, personally inspected the site on Sunday, as per the statement. No official death toll had been previously reported.
The jihadist alliance linked to Al-Qaeda, known as the Support Group for Islam and Muslims (GSIM), took responsibility for the attack the day after on the Al-Zallaqa propaganda platform. According to SITE, an American NGO specialized in monitoring extremist groups, the attack was carried out by four individuals.
This incident occurred amid escalating tensions between government forces and various armed factions, along with a series of attacks and hostilities in the vicinity of Gao and the historic city of Timbuktu. On September 7, at least 64 civilians and soldiers were killed in twin attacks in the north, attributed to jihadists.