At least 10 soldiers are killed in northern Mali in an attack against their camp.

“This morning at [the town of] Gourma-Rharous, we pushed back a terrorist attack, which caused 10 deaths in our ranks,” said a military source.

Another military source confirmed the attack, saying it had targeted a unit of the National Guard based in the town.

The second source said the attackers were believed to be elements linked to the so-called Ansar Dine group, which were designated by the United Nations (UN) as a foreign terrorist organization back in 2013.

The attack came two days after two Malian soldiers were killed and five injured when their convoy was ambushed in the center of the country.

Mali plunged into turmoil after President Amadou Toumani Toure was overthrown in a military coup on March 22, 2012. The coup leaders said they staged the coup d’état in response to the government’s inability to contain the rebellion in the country’s north.

Extremist attacks have long been concentrated in Mali’s north, but began spreading at the beginning of the year to the center of the country and, in June, to the south, near the borders with Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso.

In January 2013, French soldiers were deployed to Mali under the pretext of putting an end to the crisis in the West African country, a former colony of France.

Unrest rages on across Mali despite the presence there of an 11,000-strong UN peacekeeping force, which has been stationed in the country since July 2013, as well as 1,000 French forces.