20110107
reuters

BAMAKO (Reuters) - At attack this week on France's embassy in Mali was probably the act of an isolated attention-seeker and there was no proof the assailant was linked to Sahara-based Islamist militants, Malian officials said.

Malian authorities arrested a Tunisian man and his room mate after the Tunisian threw an explosive device at France's embassy in the Malian capital Bamako, wounding two people.

"I think this was an isolated incident. It looks like someone who wanted a "media scoop" for himself," Sadio Gassama, Mali's minister for security said on state radion on Friday.

Gassama said that experts would, however, investigate why the French embassy had been targeted.

Mali's remote desert north is at the heart of a rising threat from the North African wing of al Qaeda, known as AQIM, which has stepped up attacks on local armies and raised millions of dollars in ransom payments for kidnapped Westerners.

However, Sounkalo Togola, a spokesman for Mali's security ministry, said that there was no evidence to suggest Bechir Sinoun, the Tunisian suspect, was linked to any group.

Loic Garnier, head of the counter-terrorism section at France's Interior Ministry, told Reuters earlier this week the al Qaeda North African wing remained the single greatest danger to French interests and citizens at home and abroad.