BAMAKO: Four United Nations peacekeepers died and several others were wounded when suspected Islamists attacked their base in Mali’s restive north, as three Malian soldiers perished in an ambush in the same region, security sources said.

The latest attacks highlighted the vulnerability of the sprawling arid north, where UN peacekeepers and Malian soldiers are struggling in their fight against militants who had seized vast swathes of territory in 2012.

A camp of the UN mission in Mali, or MINUSMA, was attacked early on Friday in the strategic town of Kidal in the northeast, a UN source said.

Two Guinean soldiers died on the spot. Two other soldiers, among seven seriously wounded, died later of their injuries, the Guinean source said.

“The terrorists attacked with the help of rockets,” the UN source said. The Malian government said the attack also involved a booby-trapped van.

The raid coincided with a visit to the region by the new chief of MINUSMA, Mahamat Saleh Annadif, who began touring the north on Monday.Annadif said the raid was an “odious and irresponsible act” which highlighted the “confusion in the ranks of the enemies of peace. “Annadif was in Kidal a week after a peace pact eased tensions in the town, where the arrival early in February of members of a pro-government group had upset the former rebels in the Coordination of Movements of the Azawad.

Azawad is the name the traditionally nomadic Tuareg people of the desert use for territory they regard as their homeland, straddling the southern Sahara and the Sahel.

In a separate attack, three Malian soldiers died and two others were wounded near the fabled city of Timbuktu, a Malian military source said.

“Three of our men died today between Timbuktu and Goundam when they were ambushed by militants,” a Malian officer said. “Two others were wounded but their lives are not in danger. “The defence ministry confirmed the attack, condemning what it termed a “cowardly” strike.

On Thursday, a customs officer and two civilians were killed in another Islamist strike in the northern town of Hombori, two days after three Malian soldiers died in an explosion while they were patrolling the frontier near Burkina Faso.

Two Guinean soldiers were killed last November in a rocket attack on the MINUSMA base in Kidal, which was claimed by the group Ansar Dine.

The latest attack came a week after at least four suspected militants and a Malian soldier were killed in clashes at a UN camp for police officers from Nigeria in Timbuktu.

That assault came just a day after the fabled city had celebrated the restoration of its greatest treasures — earthen mausoleums dating to medieval times that were destroyed during an Islamist takeover in 2012.

Responsibility for the raid on Timbuktu was claimed by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2016