Stabbing attempt on Mali interim president

Two armed men, including one who wielded a knife, attacked Mali’s interim president Assimi Goita on Tuesday in the great mosque in the capital Bamako.

The attack took place during prayers for the Islamic festival of Eid Al-Adha.

Religious Affairs Minister Mamadou Kone said that a man had “tried to kill the president with a knife” but was apprehended.

Latus Toure, the director of the Great Mosque, said an attacker had lunged for the president but wounded someone else.

Mali has been struggling to contain an militant insurgency that first emerged in the north of the country in 2012, and has since spread to Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.