Militants shelled a United Nations barracks in northern Mali's largest city on Monday, without inflicting casualties or damage, peacekeeping and local government souces said. An official within the UN's MINUSMA force said "terrorists" targeting its Dutch contingent had launched at least four shells at the camp in Gao early in the morning. "There were no casualties or damage. We have strengthened the security apparatus," he said, without elaborating. A local elected official in Gao said the assailants were extremists who had succeeded only in creating a "large hole" near the camp. The shelling came a day after gunmen attacked a military checkpoint in Nione, a town in the central Segou region visited by President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita last week. One Malian soldier was wounded in that attack and two were reported missing. Mali has been plagued by unrest since the north of the vast west African state fell under the control of Tuareg rebels and extremist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012. The extremists soon sidelined the Tuareg to take sole control of Gao, Timbuktu and other northern towns but lost most of the ground they had captured in a French-led military intervention in January 2013. Nearly three years later, large swathes of Mali remain lawless despite a June peace deal between the government and Tuareg rebels seen as crucial to ending decades of instability. With more than 50 fatalities so far, MINUSMA has been one of the deadliest UN missions in recent years. Two peacekeepers and a civilian contractor were killed on November 29 in a rocket attack on a base in the northeastern region of Kidal claimed by the extremist Ansar Dine group. The recent violence follows a siege at a hotel in Bamako during which 20 people died, and comes at a time of heightened global concern about terrorism after killings in Paris claimed by ISIS extremists.
