Mali’s army on Tuesday attacked an al-Qaeda base near the Algerian border, killing several militants, security sources said, nearly two weeks after the group said it had killed a British hostage.
The operation was believed to be the first such attack by Malian troops against Islamist militants in the country’s north, observers said.
“We have attacked a group of armed Islamists, members of al-Qaeda, in the desert,” one of the sources said. “There were several dead on their side and we seized ammunition, destroyed vehicles.”
The attack targeted al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which claims close ties to al-Qaeda and emerged out of an Algerian radical group.
It has sought to extend its range into nations on the southern edge of the Sahara and has claimed several attacks in the region.
The source said Mali had been in touch with Algerian authorities and exchanged information with them, adding the aim of the military action was to flush out armed Islamists in both countries.
Another source said the destroyed base was located “between Mali and Algeria” and that there were deaths among the militants. The operation occurred in the Timetrine region.
The source said Algeria and Mali have accords allowing them to pursue the militants in each other’s territories and the two countries were working “hand-in-hand.”
Earlier this month, US-based monitoring group SITE Intelligence said al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb posted an online statement saying it killed Briton Edwin Dyer on May 31.
The execution marked the first time that al-Qaeda’s north African branch had killed a Western hostage, observers said.
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
RSS