AQIM Islamists claim two attacks against UN in Mali: Mauritanian agency

Al-Qaeda's North Africa arm has claimed responsibility for two attacks against the United Nation's MINUSMA peacekeeping mission in Mali this week, the Mauritanian Al-Akhbar news agency reported May 31. 

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said it was behind a "rocket attack on a MINUSMA base" in northern Mali on May 26 and a landmine explosion May 28 targeting a UN convoy in the restive north, according to Al-Akhbar, citing AQIM spokesman Abderrahmane Al-Azawadi.
 
The Al-Akhbar agency regularly carries jihadist statements.
 
MINUSMA on May 26 said a Bangladeshi peacekeeper had been shot dead and another wounded in "an incident".
 
And, on May 28, MINUSMA announced that three Burkina Faso peacekeepers were wounded when their convoy triggered at least one mine in the Timbuktu region.
 
The AQIM spokesman however said the mine blast had caused "three deaths", Al-Akhbar reported.
 
MINUSMA commander Major General Michael Lollesgaard from Denmark and the mission's police chief Abdounasir Awale were part of the convoy, MINUSMA sources told AFP.
 
A MINUSMA security source based in Timbuktu said it was "very likely" that the mines had been laid just before the convoy arrived, specifically targeting the two commanders, as security checks had been carried out along the route a few hours earlier.    

With 35 peacekeepers killed in combat since MINUSMA's inception in 2013, the UN has described northern Mali as the deadliest place on earth for its personnel.
 
The country's northern desert has been plagued by violence from jihadist groups that seized control of the region from Tuareg rebels before being routed by a French-led international intervention in 2013.
 
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