The Malian army said Saturday it killed around a dozen alleged jihadists when a military convoy was attacked near the border with Burkina Faso.

The attack occurred on Thursday afternoon between Dinangourou and Mondoro, the army said on Twitter.

"On the enemy's side, around a dozen terrorists were killed," but the army suffered no losses, it said.

Mali has been struggling to contain a jihadist insurgency that first emerged in the north of the country in 2012, and has since spread to the centre of the country and neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed in the fighting to date, and hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.

From 2015, violence on civilians moved to the volatile centre of the country, starting with the Fulani community, which had become associated with the jihadists after a firebrand Fulani preacher named Amadou Koufa set up an armed group.

Last week, an exhaustive report into strife-torn Mali by UN investigators said they had garnered evidence of war crimes committed by the security forces and others, and of crimes against humanity by jihadists and other armed groups.

The 338-page investigation by the International Commission of Inquiry for Mali covers six years, from 2012 to 2018.

French soldier in Mali shoots two others in drunken fight
Paris (AFP) Dec 26, 2020 –

A French soldier deployed to Mali as part of the Barkhane force fighting jihadist insurgents has wounded two comrades with a pistol while drunk, the army headquarters said Saturday.

The confrontation under the influence happened overnight from December 24 to 25 at a base in Gao in eastern Mali.

"Two soldiers from the same unit were getting on each other's nerves. One soldier wounded two of his comrades with his service weapon," an automatic pistol, army spokesman Frederic Barbry told AFP.

One of the two men was wounded very lightly, while the other's injury was more serious although not life-threatening.

Both were flown out following the shooting and brought to hospital in France.

Military police are investigating the incident and "once the probe is finished, (the shooter) will be flown home," Barbry said.

France's Barkhane force numbers 5,100 troops spread across the arid Sahel region and has been fighting jihadist groups alongside soldiers from Mauritania, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, who together make up the G5 Sahel group.

Paris is weighing cuts in the number of soldiers deployed in the region ahead of a summit planned for mid-February.