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Blast Injures Peacekeeper as Diplomats Visit Mali's Kidal


A mine exploded in the northern Malian town of Kidal on Wednesday, seriously injuring a United Nations peacekeeper but not affecting a delegation of visiting diplomats, a U.N. spokesman said.

There was no immediate claim for the blast but al-Qaida-linked Islamists who seized northern Mali in 2012 have carried out a series of insurgent-style attacks since they were scattered across the Sahara by a French-led offensive last year.

Olivier Salgado, spokesman for the U.N. mission, known as MINUSMA, said a U.N. vehicle struck a mine near Kidal's airport but the vehicle was not part of the security detail for the Bamako-based diplomats visiting the town, a flashpoint for Tuareg separatism.

Salgado did not say which country the injured peacekeeper was from but diplomatic sources said he was part of Guinea's contingent in the U.N. mission.

The ambassadors of Germany and Denmark, a Canadian diplomat and several senior U.N. officials were visiting the town when the explosion occurred but they are all safe, the sources said.

Last year, French troops and air strikes drove the al-Qaida-linked fighters from the towns they occupied. Since then, Mali has held presidential and parliamentary elections and U.N. peacekeepers have deployed across much of the vast desert zone.

However, pockets of Islamists still carry out sporadic attacks and the lack of progress in talks with local Tuareg and Arab rebel groups is stoking tensions.
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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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