Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita named a new slimmed-down government on Saturday, with cabinet members replaced in key defense and economy posts in the strife-torn west African nation.

The government of new Prime Minister Modibo Keita was appointed by a presidential decree published overnight Saturday, after his predecessor as premier resigned under pressure on Thursday. 

Suspected Islamist militants killed one person in an attack in central Mali on Wednesday, two days after 11 troops were killed in an assault on a nearby military base, local officials.

The latest attack took place in Djoura, a village close to the border with Mauritania, about 465 kilometers (290 miles) northeast of the capital Bamako.

Travelers coming to the United States from Mali will no longer be required to undergo extra screening at selected airports for potential exposure to Ebola, U.S. authorities said Monday. 

On Tuesday, the West African nation will mark 42 days -- or two full incubation cycles -- since the last Ebola patient in Mali had contact with anyone who was not wearing protective gear, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

At least eight people were killed in a gun attack Monday on a Malian army base close to the Mauritanian border, a U.N. military source said.

The assault, claimed in one report by al-Qaida-linked militants, took place at the base in Nampala near the border with Mauritania, where armed groups operate.

Six U.N. peacekeeping troops were injured in a blast Sunday in northeastern Mali, where four U.N. trucks were also torched by gunmen, military sources said.

The soldiers, who hail from Niger, were hurt when their vehicle rolled over an explosive device east of the town of Gao, an officer from the U.N. mission in Mali, MINUSMA, told Agence France-Presse.

Leaders in the sub-Saharan Sahel region of Africa called Friday on the United Nations to organize an international force "to neutralize the armed groups" sowing chaos in Libya.

Beaten, bound and fed mostly dry bread, on the darkest days of his three years held captive by Islamists in the Sahel Frenchman Serge Lazarevic felt he was no longer human.

Tunisian Foreign Minister Mongi Hamdi has been appointed to head the U.N. peace mission in Mali, where 31 peacekeepers have been killed in attacks since it deployed 18 months ago.

Mali admitted Friday that prisoners had been freed in exchange for the release of French hostage Serge Lazarevic, confirming information given to AFP earlier this week by a security source in the west African country.

"It's a fact, everyone knows, there is no need to deny reality," Justice Minister Mohamed Ali Bathily told France 24 television in response to a question on the issue, three days after Lazarevic, who was kidnapped by Islamist militants in Mali in 2011, was freed.

The French army said Thursday it had killed the commander of a major West African jihadist group's branch in Mali in an operation in the north of the country.

Ahmed el Tilemsi was the emir of the Al-Murabitoun group in Mali and was earlier this year declared a "specially designated global terrorist" by the U.S. State Department, who offered a $5 million reward (four million euros) for information leading to his capture.