Five police officers killed in Mali

BAMAKO: Five police officers were killed on Sunday by "unidentified assailants" in southern Mali, the national police said, while the Malian army claimed to be repelling a separate attack by jihadists in the northeast.

A team from the Sona Frontier Police Station "struck an explosive device followed by heavy fire from as yet unidentified assailants", the Directorate General of the National Police said in a statement.

"Five police officers were killed, one wounded and three missing", it added. The attack took place in the town of Sona, in the Koutiala area, near Mali’s border with Burkina Faso.

A local elected official and a member of the national police, both speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, described the assailants as "terrorists". "A task force of the Defense and Security Forces, dispatched to the scene, is currently combing the area and actively searching for the missing", the police said in the statement.