Al-Qaida-linked Militants Claim Responsibility for Mali Suicide Bombing

An al-Qaida linked extremist group claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s suicide attack on a military camp in northern Mali that killed at least 60 soldiers and former rebels and wounded 115.

A car packed with explosives penetrated the camp in Gao as hundreds of soldiers gathered for a morning meeting.

They belong to the Joint Operational Mechanism, which brings together government forces and former Tuareg rebels who form patrols to enforce the 2015 Malian peace agreement.

Al Mourabitoune, which is linked to al-Qaida’s North Africa branch, said it was behind the bombing.

Three days of mourning

Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop called the bombing “criminal, cowardly and barbaric.”

“This attack should not distract us from our will to move forward to promote peace and to act against those who are trying to sabotage the peace process,” Diop said during a scheduled meeting on Mali at the United Nations Security Council.

He said Mali will observe three days of mourning for the victims and vowed that those who carried out the bombing will be found and punished.

U.S. ‘strongly condemns’ bombing

U.N. peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous appealed to all sides to do what they can to preserve the peace deal in Mali, warning that “if the security situation The continues to deteriorate, then soon there won’t be any peace to keep in Mali.”

The U.N. Security Council condemned the attack as well as “any attempt to derail the peace process in Mali.”

The U.S. also says it “strongly condemns the cowardly attack” in Mali. State Department spokesman John Kirby added that “we also denounce in the strongest terms all efforts to derail implementation of the peace agreement.”

A very shaky peace

Tuareg separatists took advantage of a 2012 military coup in Mali to briefly seize control of the north before al-Qaida linked militants drove them out.

A French force took back the region from the Islamists. Thousands of U.N. peacekeepers and Malian soldiers are overseeing a very shaky peace agreement between the Malian government and the Tuaregs.

Human Rights Watch says Islamists killed 29 U.N. peacekeepers last year and still threaten to impose strict Sharia law in northern and central Mali.