The Malian Army on Wednesday confirmed the arrest of three Europeans who were among a group of suspected jihadists in the country.
A spokesman of the Malian army said in statement on Wednesday, the three Europeans were part an Islamist insurgent group wreaking havoc in the country’s northern Sahel regions since 2012.
The military authority, which has ruled the West African country since 2020, was accused of carrying out a massacre of civilians at the beginning of this month.
But the army defended its actions, saying the operations were necessary to push back the jihadists.
“The priority now is to reclaim the base from the terrorists and an operation is underway,” the news agency quoted a source as saying.
Jihadists aligned with the Islamic State militant group have captured a military base in Borno state after overnight clashes with troops.
According to AFP, machine-gun wielding fighters from Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) attacked the base in the town of Marte in the Lake Chad area overnight Friday into Saturday.
“The priority now is to reclaim the base from the terrorists and an operation is underway,” the news agency quoted a source as saying.
“We took a hit from ISWAP terrorists. They raided the base in Marte after a fierce battle.”
He said the army “incurred losses” but it was not clear how many people had died or the level of destruction inflicted by the insurgents.
Last week, the jihadists attacked the Marte base but were repelled, prompting them to mobilise more fighters for the overnight raid.
In November last year, Nigerian government officials began the phased return of residents to Marte six years after the jihadists pushed them out.
The town, 130 kilometres (80 miles) from the regional capital Maiduguri, was once considered the Lake Chad region’s breadbasket.
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
