Killed Soldiers Underscore Mali’s Struggle to Oust Islamists

(Bloomberg) -- Twenty-four Malian soldiers have been killed in an ambush by Islamist militants, underscoring the government’s failure to curb the spread of extremist groups.

Several others remain missing after the attack, which occurred Sunday afternoon about 18 kilometers (11 miles) south of the town of Diabaly, Malian army spokespeople said by phone and in a text-message response from Bamako Monday.

Activists and political opponents have called on President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, 75, to resign over his inability to stem attacks by groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, which have risen in recent months.

The violence has spread from Mali to neighbors in the Sahel, a semi-arid zone on the southern fringe of the Sahara desert, and down to coastal nations such as Togo and Benin. An attack on a military post Thursday in a border town in Ivory Coast, the world’s top cocoa grower, could be the first such attack on Ivorian soil since a 2016 raid on a beach resort left 19 people dead. Authorities are still investigating and are yet to determine who the perpetrators were.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.