We need more news like this; not of more terrorist attacks but of more dead terrorists.
BAMAKO (Reuters) - At least five suicide bombers died in northern Mali on Friday in attacks aimed at Malian and Nigerien troops which failed to inflict serious casualties on their targets, a spokesman for Mali's army said.
One of the towns hit was Gossi, the furthest south al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels have struck in a guerrilla war launched against Malian and regional forces since the rebels were driven from their former strongholds in a French-led offensive this year.
The attacks have had limited success so far but threaten to undermine international calls for elections to be held across Mali in July although security is not yet fully restored to a zone that was occupied by Islamists last year.
The suicide raids took place nearly simultaneously between 4 and 5 a.m. in Menaka and Gossi, near Gao.
"The first attack targeted Nigerien soldiers in Menaka. A car bomb entered the (military) camp, but the soldiers ... destroyed the vehicle, which exploded," Lieutenant Colonel Souleymane Maiga told Reuters.
"At the same time in Gossi, three suicide bombers on foot attacked a checkpoint. Again the soldiers ... shot them. The three bombers were killed," he said.
As the men exchanged fire with soldiers, a fourth member of the group entered a nearby military camp and blew himself up, slightly wounding two soldiers, a second military source said.
A bus driver passing through Gossi, 150 km (90 miles) southwest of Gao, told Reuters he saw dismembered body parts strewn along the road, which links Gao and the capital Bamako.
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