Death Toll From Mali Army Post Attack Climbs to 54

(Bloomberg) -- The death toll from an attack on an army post in eastern Mali on Friday rose to 54, making it one of the deadliest assaults on security forces since separatists and Islamist insurgents seized swathes of the nation’s north in 2012.

The latest estimate of casualties was announced by government spokesman Yaya Sangare in a statement on Twitter. Reinforcements dispatched to the army post in Indelimane near the Niger border found 54 bodies, including one civilian, and “significant material damage,” the statement said. The previously announced death toll was 35.

The attack comes after 38 soldiers were killed in a simultaneous attack on two army bases near the Burkina Faso border on Sept. 30. Attacks by militants linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State have intensified in Mali’s central region despite the presence of French troops and a 15,000-strong United Nations peacekeeping force.

The Sahel, a semi-arid region on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert, saw a doubling of militant attacks last year, according to a recent State Department report. It stands out as a region where violent extremism is on the rise in contrast to progress made fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

An Islamic State-affiliate, known as the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, or ISGS, claimed responsibility for the Nov. 1 attack through the group’s Amaq news agency without providing any evidence. It also said it was behind an attack against French troops that killed one French soldier near Menaka in eastern Mali late Saturday.

The attack was confirmed by French authorities in a statement Saturday. A medical team confirmed the death of a French soldier after the vehicle the troops were traveling in hit a roadside bomb, France’s defense ministry said in a statement on its website.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bokar Sangare in Accra at bsangare1@bloomberg.net;Katarina Hoije in Abidjan at khoije@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Chakradhar Adusumilli at cadusumilli@bloomberg.net, Hari Govind

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