Suspected militants kill at least 40 Tuaregs in Mali - official

Suspected militants killed 40 Tuaregs, mostly young men, in two attacks in northern Mali's Menaka region, which the local governor said seemed calculated to spark an ethnic conflict between Tuareg and Fulani herders.

Menaka governor Daouda Maiga told Reuters news agency that the attacks happened in the remote desert villages of Awakassa on Friday and in Anderanboucane, a day earlier.

"The dead were mostly youths, no women or children, mostly of the age where they can carry arms," Maiga said.

The victims included many members of the Tuareg militia National Movement for the Salvation of Azawad (MSA).

Militant groups are seen as the greatest threat to security across Africa's Sahel region. 

They have proved adept at exploiting local tensions between ethnic groups to sow discord — such as those between mostly lighter-skinned Tuareg and black Fulani herdsmen over scarce watering points in the Sahara.

Bajan Ag Hamatou, a local legislator, confirmed the attack, as did Menaka town's mayor, Nanout Kotia.

TRT World spoke with Idrissa Sangare, a journalist based in Bamako, for more details.

Doubt over feasibility of polls

Rising violence across Mali has cast doubt over the feasibility of elections scheduled for the end of July, in which President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita will seek a second term.

Daesh's Saharan affiliate is active in the Menaka region bordering Niger. 

It is led by an Arabic-speaking north African called Adnan Abu Walid al Sahrawi, but the majority of its fighters are Fulani.

Reprisal attacks 

"The MSA is fighting the Islamist groups, which are composed mostly of Fulani," Maiga said. 

"So these two attacks were reprisals against them. They want to transform the conflict into something inter-communal."

Mali has been in chaos since Tuareg rebels and militants swept across its deserts in 2012, despite a French intervention to push them back the following year, and a large French military and UN peacekeeping presence.