Suspected Militants Kill Three at Mali Customs Post

Suspected ISIS militants on Thursday killed two civilians and a customs officer and scorched a car in an attack on a customs post in Mopti in central Mali, a defense ministry spokesman said.

The recent months have witnessed ISIS militants expanding range with a series of raids.

In November, militants killed 20 people in a high-profile raid on a hotel in Mali’s capital and 30 more, with a further 56 injured, in the capital of Burkina Faso, Ouagadougo last month on a luxury hotel, popular with foreigners.

Also, according to a defense ministry statement a military vehicle hit a land mine in central Mali, killing three soldiers, on Tuesday.

The most active group is al Qaeda in Maghreb, but the Macina Liberation Front, whose leader is Amadou Kouffa, is suspected over the Mopti attack, a security source said.

ISIS militants seized towns in northern Mali in 2012 until a year later when the French forces drove them out. Yet since then, operations ran by French forces and efforts by U.N. peacekeeping mission have failed to end the attacks.