Second suicide attack foiled in northern Mali

A suicide bombing at an army checkpoint in the northern Malian town of Gao has killed only the attacker, military officials say.
The attack late on Saturday came a day after a similar attack on the same checkpoint. No other people were wounded in the blast.

“It was a suicide bomber who blew himself up,” said a soldier, who was at the checkpoint at the northern entrance to Gao, which French-led forces reclaimed from al-Qaeda-linked rebels on January 26.

A Malian government source told Reuters that soldiers fired at the attacker before he reached the the checkpoint, prompting him to detonate his explosives.

The bomber’s severed head was still lying on the ground at the scene Sunday morning.

The explosion shook the city, the largest in northern Mali, at around 11:00pm local time (23:00 GMT).

Troops from Mali and Niger had already increased patrols and fortified checkpoints with sandbags and heavy machine guns after Friday’s suicide attack, in which a young Tuareg dressed in a paramilitary uniform drove up to the checkpoint on a motorcycle and detonated an explosive-rigged belt.

He failed to detonate a larger bomb he was carrying, and no one else was killed, though a Malian soldier was lightly wounded.

New attacks

The attack was claimed by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), one of a trio of hardline religious groups that seized control of northern Mali for 10 months.

In a new statement issued on Saturday, before the second suicide bombing, MUJAO had warned of new attacks.

“We are dedicating ourselves to carrying out more attacks against France and its allies. We ask the local population to stay far away from military zones and avoid explosions,” spokesman Abou Walid Sahraoui said.

On Sunday the army had closed the road where the blast occurred, which leads from northeastern hub Gao to Bourem and Kidal, two other key towns in the region.

After Friday’s attack, the number of soldiers at the checkpoint had been doubled, two walls of sandbags placed 300m apart to protect them and surrounding trees cut down to increase visibility.

Source: Agencies