Gunmen attacked a convoy carrying election materials in central Mali, triggering a shootout in which four soldiers and eight attackers were killed, a Defence Ministry spokesman says.

The spokesman said the attack occurred late on Tuesday on the road between Nampala and Coura in the south-central region of Segou, giving no further details, and declining to say whether it was carrying ballot papers.

"The convoy was transporting some youths and election materials. There were 12 killed in total, four soldiers and eight terrorists," the spokesman said by telephone.

Mali's presidential election, the second since Tuareg rebels and allied Islamists took over the north in 2012, prompting French forces to intervene the following year to push them back, has been beset by attacks at the hands of suspected Islamist militants and allied ethnic militia.

Armed attackers succeeded in shutting down 644 polling stations on Sunday, representing about 3 per cent of the total. A fifth of all polling stations suffered some kind of disruption, figures from the Ministry of Territorial Administration showed.

Jihadists have rendered almost all of north and central Mali unsafe by continually targeting foreign and local interests, taking hostages and attacking security and peacekeeping forces. </s> Gunmen attacked a convoy carrying election materials in central Mali, triggering a shootout in which four soldiers and eight attackers were killed, a Defence Ministry spokesman said by telephone on Wednesday.

The spokesman said the attack occurred late on Tuesday on the road between Nampala and Coura in the south-central region of Segou, giving no further details.

The party of Malian presidential candidate Soumaila Cisse said on Monday that the poll would go to a run-off between Cisse and President Ibrahim Keita, a day after a vote that was heavily disrupted by suspected Islamist gunmen.

Cisse’s campaign manager, Tiebele Drame, made the announcement at the party’s headquarters in Bamako, the capital.

Keita’s spokesman said the president was substantially in the lead according to provisional vote count, although he accepted that a run-off was possible.

Spiralling jihadist violence has become a key issue in the campaign, as attacks multiply and the death toll mounts across north and central Mali.

“The law forbids the proclamation of results by anyone except the Ministry of Territorial Administration,” Drame told a news conference.

“However, I can tell you that we are going to a second round between Soumaila Cisse and Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.”

Mahamadou Camara, the spokesman for Keita, said, “According to our tally, IBK has come substantially ahead,” using the popular nickname for the president, taken from his initials.

The exact numbers of voters who were disenfranchised by violence is not known, but they could easily become a flashpoint if the vote is close.

Ministry of Territorial Administration figures showed that, of the roughly 23,000 polling stations that were meant to open, 4,632 were disrupted by “armed attacks or other violence,” of which 644 were unable to operate.

In most of Mali, the vote was peaceful and relatively well organised, with polls opening and closing on time.

Most people who were enrolled and turned up were able to vote.

In the mud-walled medieval city of Timbuktu, once a flourishing tourist spot before Islamist militants made it too dangerous, witnesses said gunmen had intimidated voters, seized ballot boxes and in some cases set fire to them in the few polling stations that were attacked outside town.

NAN reports that Islamist militants took over northern cities like Timbuktu in 2012 on the back of a Tuareg rebellion, imposing Sharia law with harsh penalties like cutting off fingers for smoking, until France intervened a year later to push them back.

The Islamist militants regard democracy as an un-Islamic Western imposition.

Since Keita came to power in the 2013 poll, Islamist violence has swept south into Mali’s fertile centre.

UN mission chief Mahamat Annadif on Friday urged whoever wins the poll to urgently address jihadist-stoked ethnic violence in Mali’s central “breadbasket.”

The figures from the ministry showed that the central region of Mopti accounted for half of polling stations under attack.

Hamid Bore, 39, a teacher, was in charge of one such station in the village of Dembere.

The militants arrived just as polls opened at 8 a.m. (0800 GMT), he said.

At a news conference, the head of the European Union observer mission welcomed the decision to make public the number of polling stations that had not been able to function but urged it to publish more precise information about which ones exactly.

Cisse’s campaign has repeatedly accused Keita of tampering with the electoral list to try to steal the election.

The UN is heaping pressure on all sides to accept the result — or at least contest it through legal channels — to avert a political crisis on top of the security woes the country is already facing. </s> Twelve villagers were killed and 14 injured in an attack by suspected jihadists on a village in a gas-rich region of northern Mozambique, a local source told AFP on Friday.

Since October, the southeast African country’s golden vision to exploit its gas reserves has been thrown into doubt by an explosion of bloodthirsty assaults in the region where the industry plans to base its hub.

“Ten people killed were shot by firearms and two burnt (to death) after 55 houses were charred. A person was beheaded after being shot dead” in the northern village of Paqueue late Thursday, said the source.

A health official in the Cabo Delgado region, who declined to be named, said that an ambulance was dispatched to Paqueue to “rescue the 14 wounded”.

In a separate incident, a military convoy came under attack near the Tanzanian border north of Paqueue, killing a senior army officer, according to a police source.

“The attack occurred at night when defence and security forces routinely patrol. The attackers wore military uniforms and had large-calibre firearms,” said the source who declined to be named. DM

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Click here to become a Maverick Insider and get a closer look at the Truth. </s> Mali's defense ministry says at least four soldiers have been killed in an attack by armed men in the central Segou region.

Defense Minister Tiena Coulibaly says the gunmen ambushed the convoy Tuesday. No group has claimed responsibility, but the attack is similar to others by al-Qaida-linked extremists in Mali's central region.

Extremist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State organization roam Mali's north and center, targeting Malian and French troops and other high-profile targets including the headquarters of a new regional counterterror force.

The attack comes as votes are counted after Sunday's elections. Provisional results are expected this week. If none of the 24 presidential candidates wins more than 50 percent, a second round will be Aug. 12. </s> 34 villagers have been killed by gunmen on motorcycles in the northern Zamfara state of African country Nigeria. This areas in the country are constantly facing criminal gangs who terrorize the remote villages.

The fatal incident occurred on Friday. The criminals’ gangs on motorcycles entered the Ungar Kafau and Gidan Wawa villages in Shinkafi district and shot dead 34 people. The bandits were said to have opened fire on farmers on their fields outside the villages and also pursued those who fled.

For the last many years the rural communities in the Zamfara state have for years been terrorised by criminal gangs. The criminals’ raid villages, steal cattle, kidnapping for ransom and burning homes after looting food supplies.

The bandits are known to hide in camps in Rugu forest which straddles Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna and Niger states from where they launch attacks on communities in the area. </s> Abuja, Nigeria - Gunmen have killed more than 60 people during attacks on two communities in Nigeria's northwestern Kaduna state.

A government statement on Friday, which confirmed the attacks, said security personnel had been "deployed to the area and arrests have been made".

"Security agencies today reported the recovery of 66 bodies that were killed in attacks by criminal elements on various dispersed hamlets in the Maro Gida and Iri axis of Kajuru," Kaduna governor's spokesperson Samuel Aruwan said.

"Among the victims were 22 children and 12 women. Four wounded persons rescued by the security agencies are now receiving medical attention," he added.

The attack has caused panic among residents of the state.

"I hope the security agencies can step up their plan and ensure there are no more killings, especially this election period to reduce the tension," Kaduna resident Abdulkadir Inuwa told Al Jazeera.

The incident comes hours before the presidential and legislative elections on Saturday.

Election boycott

The senior Nigeria researcher of the International Crisis Group, Nnamdi Obasi, told Al Jazeera that the attacks may affect the elections.

"These attacks and the fear of reprisal will certainly affect voter turnout in Kajuru local government area. following similar killings in 2018, they have also heightened long-running tensions in parts of Kaduna state, creating a more combustible atmosphere around the elections," Obasi said.

Security is a major concern before Saturday's vote.

Kaduna has a history of election violence.

In 2011, hundreds were killed in the state during post-election violence after acting President Goodluck Jonathan beat Muhammadu Buhari to the presidency. </s> Gunmen have killed 26 people in northern Nigeria's Zamfara state, in the latest in a series of attacks blamed on cattle thieves, a local official said Friday.

Men on motorcycles attacked gold miners near Kuru-Kuru village in Anka district late Thursday and clashed with residents from a nearby village who had mobilised in anticipation of the assault.

"We buried 26 people killed in the two attacks by the armed bandits," chairman of Anka local government Mustapha Gado Anka told AFP.

"The victims were miners from Kuru-Kuru that were attacked and residents of Jarkuka village who had come to help their neighbours," Anka said.

He said the assailants ambushed the group of volunteers from Jarkuka who had come to help.

Zamfara state police spokesman Mohammed Shehu confirmed the attack, but declined to give details "until after the police commissioner is briefed".

The killings were the latest round of tit-for-tat attacks by cattle thieves on farming communities in the state.

Last month, at least 36 people were killed in a similar fashion in nearby Bawar-Daji.

Gunmen on motorbikes invaded the village and opened fire on mourners who had gone to a cemetary to bury victims of a previous attack.

For several years, rural communities in the agrarian state have been under siege from gangs of cattle rustlers who carry out deadly raids on herding communities to kill, loot and burn homes.

In the absence of a robust police force and effective judicial system in Nigeria, villagers have created local vigilante groups to fight off the gangs.

But the vigilantes are equally responsible for the bloodshed and are also accused of extra-judicial killings.

Residents said the intensification of the attacks was because locals were cooperating with soldiers sent to quell the attacks.

"People have been cooperating with soldiers sent to fight the bandits and we believe this is why they have been launching renewed attacks," a resident told AFP.

In early April, the Nigerian air force deployed special forces to the state to reinforce troops on the ground fighting the bandits.

Following the Bawar-Daji attack, state governor Abdulaziz Yari ordered troops to shoot on sight anyone found with a gun in the area.

Nigeria, West Africa's largest economy, is battling an array of security concerns across the country, from Boko Haram jihadists in the northeast to oil militants in the south.

President Muhammadu Buhari has deployed troops in many states to combat cattle rustlers and criminal gangs and try and contain clashes between herdsmen and farmers. </s> Gunmen killed at least 11 people in a bar in northern Brazil on Sunday, officials said.

The shooting took place in the city of Belem, the public safety department of northern Para state said.

There was no immediate word on the motive of the shooting.

The attackers fled but the news website G1 quoted police as saying one was wounded and is in police custody.

The fatalities are six women and five men, G1 said.

Seven men carried out the shooting after arriving on a motorcyle and in three cars, said G1. They fled after the attack.

The bar where the shooting took place is in a neighborhood which got police reinforcements in March to fight crime.

Get the latest election news, live updates and election schedule for Lok Sabha Elections 2019 on ndtv.com/elections. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram for updates from each of the 543 parliamentary seats for the 2019 Indian general elections. Election results will be out on May 23. </s> At least two people died after gunmen attacked a popular a tourist resort in Mali, east of its Capital Bamako. Security Minister Salif Traore told AFP that the incident at luxury resort Le Campement Kangaba was a “jihadist attack” and that security forces had shot dead four assailants. The gunmen had briefly taken more than 30 hostages.

“Malian special forces intervened and hostages have been released,” Traore said, adding that the bodies of two attackers had been recovered. “Unfortunately for the moment, there are two dead, including a Franco-Gabonese.”

The Security Ministry said at least 14 people, both Malians and foreigners, were injured. According to Traore, they earlier believed armed bandits, who had arrived at the location on motorbikes, were behind the incident, but later concluded that it was a “terrorist attack”, Reuters reported. “We know how armed bandits operate. They don’t hold territory,” he explained.

Counter operations were carried out by Malian security forces, peacekeeping mission vehicles of the United Nations and French troops.

Earlier this month, the US Embassy in Bamako had warned of “possible future attacks” on places frequented by Westerners and diplomatic missions, according to the BBC.
Gunmen attack a convoy carrying election materials in the Ségou Region. The attack and the ensuing shootout kill four soldiers and eight attackers.