Summary France kicked off the so-called Serval offensive in January last year to assist Malian soldiers.
PARIS (AFP) - A French legionnaire has been killed in a suicide attack in northern Mali, taking to nine the number of soldiers to have died in the west African country since 2013, the defence ministry said Tuesday.
Serbian-born Dejvid Nikolic, 45, who held French nationality, "fell victim to a suicide attack" about 100 kilometres from the northern town of Gao in Mali's restive north on Monday, the defence ministry said in a statement.
France kicked off the so-called Serval offensive in January last year to help Malian soldiers stop Al-Qaeda-linked militants and Tuareg rebels from advancing on the capital Bamako from the north of its former colony.
France -- which currently has 1,700 soldiers in Mali -- had initially planned to end Serval in May and redeploy troops to the Sahel region, but fresh clashes between rebels and the army in the flashpoint northern town of Kidal forced Paris to delay the pullout, which it officially announced on Sunday.
