Ouagadougou: Unidentified gunmen have killed three police officers in northern Burkina Faso near the Malian border, the government and local officials said Wednesday.
"Three police officers were killed yesterday (Tuesday) evening... The attackers killed them in the police station in Intamgom," a village some five kilometres (three miles) from the border, a high-ranking official from Oudalam province told AFP.
"There were three or four attackers. They headed back to Mali afterwards. We aren't sure yet, but it looks like a terrorist attack given the modus operandi," he said on condition of anonymity.
The government confirmed the attack and the toll in a statement on Wednesday, which also "called on the population to remain calm and serene, and to report any suspicious activity to the defence and security forces."
The assault was the second to hit a police station near Mali in less than a fortnight.
Two officers were injured on May 17 when gunmen raided a police station in Koutoukou in the neighbouring province of Soum.
Until this year Burkina Faso had avoided the attacks and hostage-taking by jihadist groups which had wracked other Sahel countries since 2008.
But on January 15, 30 people -- among them many foreigners -- were killed during a jihadist raid on a top Burkina Faso hotel and a nearby restaurant in the capital Ouagadougou in an attack claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
The next day, an elderly Australian couple were kidnapped in the north of the country where they had lived for more than four decades.
The woman, Jocelyn Elliot, was released in early February, but her 82-year-old husband Kenneth Elliot is still being held.
AFP
