NOUAKCHOTT // Al Qaeda’s north African division claimed responsibility on Monday for a car bomb that rocked the Malian city of Timbuktu over the weekend, killing two civilians and wounding several soldiers, a report said.
“Two of our brave suicide bombers managed to reach the military base in Timbuktu in a vehicle carrying more than a ton of explosives,” said a spokesman for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (Aqim), according to the Mauritanian Alakhbar news agency.
The spokesman said the explosion killed 16 soldiers and wounded many more.
“The operation also led to the destruction of several military vehicles and blew up some of the buildings in the barracks,” the unnamed spokesman added.
The claim contradicts the army’s statement, however, that four suicide bombers in the car when it exploded and two passers-by were the only people killed.
The attack on Saturday, which wounded six soldiers, was the first suicide bombing since March in the mainly Tuareg and Arab caravan desert town.
It came a day after Aqim announced it had appointed Algerian Said Abou Moughatil to take over from Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, a key commander who was killed in fighting with French-led forces in northern Mali.
Abou Zeid, 46, was credited with having significantly expanded the jihadist group’s field of operations to Tunisia and Niger, and for kidnapping activities across the region.
France confirmed in March that Abou Zeid had been killed “during fighting led by the French army in the Ifoghas mountains in northern Mali in late February”.
Meanwhile, Malian soldiers and ethnic Tuareg separatist rebels clashed in the northern town of Kidal early on Monday, a day after trading gunfire downtown and sending terrified residents inside their homes.
After a lull in violence overnight, fighting flared in the morning but was brought to a halt when French soldiers arrived at the scene several hours later.
“The French forces are trying to calm the situation but it’s very complicated,” said Hubert de Quievrecourt, a communications officer with the French military mission. “For the moment there is no casualty toll but the fighting has stopped.”
Mali has been the target of a series of attacks claimed by Islamist insurgents since France launched a military operation in January against Al Qaeda-linked groups including Aqim occupying the north of the country.
The French-led operation forced the extremists from the cities they seized in the chaotic aftermath of a military coup that overthrew Mali’s government in March 2012.
* Agence France-Presse with additional reporting by Associated Press
