(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) A Malian army helicopter crashed Saturday in a residential
neighborhood of the capital Bamako while returning from an
anti-extremist operation, the armed forces and sources said,
trend reports
citing al
arabiya .
The incident followed an ambush earlier Saturday on an army
supply mission in the Sahel country's restive north.
“At around 1:10 pm, an attack helicopter of the Malian armed
forces, returning from an operational mission, crashed in a
residential area of Bamako,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces
said in a statement.
It cited“possible victims” without giving a number.
Mali has been battling a security crisis since extremist and
separatist insurgencies broke out in the north of the country in
2012.
A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said
the crash occurred in the Missabougou district.
A police officer told AFP the area had been cordoned off.
“The helicopter was returning from the Mauritanian border where
it had intervened against [extremists]”, another military source,
speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.
The Malian army did not provide details of the operation but
local officials in the town of Nara in northern Mali said an attack
had taken place there on Saturday morning.
“A supply mission of the Malian Armed Forces was ambushed just
10 kilometers from Mourdiah on the road to Nara”, the provincial
government said, adding that no casualties had been reported
yet.
On Tuesday, an official delegation was ambushed near Nara. The
chief of staff of Mali's transitional president and at least two
others died in the attack.
Earlier on Saturday morning, suspected extremists attacked a
military camp in Sevare, central Mali, killing at least nine people
and injuring at least 60 others, according to regional
officials.
Extremists affiliated with al-Qaeda and the ISIS group have
escalated their operations into central Mali and neighboring Niger
and Burkina Faso.
Thousands of civilians, police and troops have been killed
across the region, and more than two million have fled their
homes.
The Sahel country has been ruled by the military since August
2020.