Militants Launch Failed Rocket Attack in Northern Mali

Militants fired rockets at a school and a French army camp in the northern Malian city of Kidal on Monday, without managing to hit their targets, military sources said.

"On Monday at 7:00 am (0700 GMT), Islamists fired four rockets at Kidal. One rocket was headed to the French military camp and the fourth to a school. There are no victims," a Malian military source told AFP.

A French army source said that "three rockets were fired at Kidal, (which) did not cause any damage".

Residents said that after the attack, "heavily armed" French soldiers were patrolling the streets of Kidal, which lies deep in the desert north of the west African sub-Saharan nation.

Several Islamist groups linked to Al-Qaida occupied northern Mali in 2012 before being driven out of the vast desert region's major towns and cities by a French-led military intervention launched in January last year.

While the Islamists' organizational structure was largely destroyed in the army operation, splinter groups are holed up in the desert and launch regular guerrilla-style attacks, some of them deadly.