Via VICE:
Nine UN peacekeepers were killed early Friday morning during a brazen ambush carried out by suspected al Qaeda-linked militants in northeast Mali near the border with Niger.
The attack was the deadliest on peacekeepers in Mali since the UN’s mission in the country launched in July 2013. Heavily armed militants riding motorcycles attacked a UN logistical convoy — including a fuel truck — guarded by 40 Nigerien troops along the road between Ansongo and Menaka, in the Gao Region. A spokesman for the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) said there were no casualties beyond the nine peacekeepers.