Bamako--A peacekeeper and two children died Sunday as militants shelled a UN base in northern Mali, heightening security fears as police hunted jihadists who launched a deadly Bamako nightclub assault.
The UN's MINUSMA force said more than 30 rockets were fired at its barracks in the rebel stronghold of Kidal from 5:40 am (0540 GMT).
"Once they had established from where the rockets were being fired, MINUSMA troops immediately returned fire two kilometres from the compound, at around 6:00 am," the force said in a statement.
"According to preliminary reports, one MINUSMA soldier died and eight others were injured. The shelling also claimed victims among the citizens of Kidal outside the compound, killing two and injuring four."
The force said in an update on Twitter that the civilian victims -- members of the nomadic Arab Kunta tribe -- were children and that only three had been wounded.
Their encampment near the UN base was hit by stray rockets as the attack got under way, a MINUSMA source said.
Sources inside the force also said the peacekeeper, like the majority of personnel at the base, was Chadian.
The UN Security Council issued a statement condemning the "heinous" assault and warned that "those responsible for the attack shall be held accountable".
No group has claimed responsibility, although Kidal is the cradle of northern Mali's Tuareg separatist movement, which has launched several uprisings from the region since the 1960s.
Tuareg and Arab militias -- loyalist and anti-government -- have forged a peace agreement with the Malian government formulated earlier this month in Algiers, although the main rebel groups have yet to sign it.
"MINUSMA strongly condemns these heinous terrorist acts, whose only goal is to thwart all the efforts currently under way to achieve lasting peace in Mali," the force said.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other jihadist groups also carry out operations in Kidal, including the 2013 murders of French journalists Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon.
- 'West insulted our prophet' -
In Bamako, police in bulletproof vests patrolled the area where a masked gunman had burst into La Terrasse, a popular venue among expats, spraying automatic gunfire and throwing grenades early Saturday.
Al-Murabitoun, a jihadist group run by leading Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar, has claimed responsibility for the attack, which left a Frenchman, a Belgian and three Malians dead.
It said in an audio recording carried by Mauritanian news agency Al-Akbar the operation was carried out "to avenge our prophet against the unbelieving West which has insulted and mocked him".
Vehicle checks were stepped up on the three bridges over the Niger river as detectives focused on a black four-wheel drive apparently used by the nightclub attacker and an accomplice.
AFP
