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Eighteen UN troops and two civilians were wounded Thursday in a mortar attack on a military base in northern Mali, a UN official said, in fresh violence in the war-torn West African country.
Olivier Salgado, the spokesperson for the UN mission in Mali, said the toll was “preliminary.”
Libyan forces loyal to the eastern-based commander Khalifa Haftar said they had taken control of the strategic coastal city of Sirte in a rapid advance preceded by airstrikes.
Holding Sirte would be an important gain for Haftar, who since April has been waging a military offensive on the capital, Tripoli, home to Libya’s internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA).
Machine-gun wielding jihadists killed four Nigerian soldiers and wounded 11 more during an attack on an army base in the northeast, military officials told AFP on Sunday.
Fighters from the Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) arrived in six trucks to attack the Jakana base, near the city of Maiduguri, on Saturday evening, according to the officials.
An airstrike slammed into a military academy in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, on Saturday, killing at least 16 people, most of them students, the health authorities said.
Malek Merset, a spokesman with the Tripoli-based health ministry, said the airstrike took place in the Hadaba area, just south of the city center, where fighting has been raging for months. He said the strike wounded at least 37 others, who were taken to nearby hospitals for treatment.
Turkey is considering sending allied Syrian fighters to Libya as part of planned military support for the besieged government in Tripoli, senior Turkish sources said on Monday, potentially bringing more foreign influence into the complex conflict.
President Tayyip Erdogan said last week Turkey would deploy troops to Libya after Fayez al-Serraj’s internationally-recognized government requested support to fend off an offensive by General Khalifa Haftar’s eastern forces.
