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| - At least 31 soldiers were killed in an attack in northern Mali this week, an army officer said, after one of two devastating attacks in the Sahel region since Monday. Dozens of assailants on motorbikes and pickup trucks on Monday stormed a military post southwest of the town of Ansongo, near the borders with Burkina Faso and Niger, the army said on social media. The attack also came on the same day as a brutal massacre of 58 civilians in neighbouring Niger, where militants attacked four buses carrying villagers returning from a market in the west of the Sahel state. A Malian army commander, who requested anonymity, told AFP that the number reported killed in the assault on the army position had risen to 31, and that wounded soldiers had been transported to the nearby northern city of Gao. "Among the ranks of the terrorists, 13 dead were found on the ground, and they left with other bodies," he said. Much of the central Sahel has been locked in a vicious conflict between state forces, jihadists and ethnic militias for years, in a battle which shows no sign of abating. Islamist fighters in the Sahel first emerged in northern Mali in 2012, during a rebellion by ethnic Touareg separatists that was later overtaken by the jihadists. France intervened to crush the rebellion, but the jihadists scattered and regrouped, taking their campaign into central Mali in 2015 and then into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso. Militants frequently target Mali's army, which is largely underfunded and poorly equipped. Monday's attack against the soldiers represents the largest single loss of life for Mali's military this year. An initial statement following the attack on the military outpost said that two soldiers had been killed and eight wounded, but late on Tuesday the army gave the higher casualty figures, specifying 11 dead and 14 injured with 11 still missing. On Wednesday the death toll rose further when the Malian commander said that 31 soldiers had been killed. Other sources cited an even higher death toll: An official document consulted by AFP reported 33 dead and 14 wounded. And a local politician who requested anonymity said 34 soldiers were killed. It remains unclear how many soldiers are still missing. Heavy losses have also been inflicted on United Nations peacekeepers and French troops in Sahel over the past several months. Twenty-eight United Nations peacekeepers were killed in an attack in central Mali in February. France, which has 5,100 troops deployed across the Sahel, also lost five soldiers to roadside bombs in since December. Much of the recent violence has been centred in the so-called 'three-border zone' linking Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. France and its military allies in the Sahel launched an offensive in the lawless region early last year, aiming to flush out jihadists, especially fighters linked to the Islamic State group. The French government -- which is mulling a troop drawdown in the Sahel -- argues that it has significantly weakened jihadist groups in the Sahel. It announced in January, for example, that it had killed about 100 militants during a recent push in the border zone. Yet attacks on government targets have continued. The area around Ansongo -- where Monday's ambush against Malian troops occurred -- is considered a hotspot for Islamic State group activity. sd-lal-eml/pma
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