Mali on edge after suicide attack

MALI: Malian troops bolstered security at army checkpoints and villagers detained two youths allegedly strapped with explosives on Saturday after Islamists claimed responsibility for the country's first suicide attack.

Residents of a village near Gao, the largest city in the north, said they had detained two young men, an Arab and a Tuareg, whom they claimed were wearing explosive-rigged belts and travelling on the same road where the suicide bombing on Friday wounded a soldier at a checkpoint.

In Timbuktu, a grave was discovered Friday containing several bodies including those of three Arab shopkeepers who had recently been arrested by the Malian army, the independent Mauritanian news site ANI reported.

Northern Mali is being torn by rising tensions between light-skinned Arabs and Tuaregs -- often accused of supporting the Islamist occupiers who seized control of the north for 10 months -- and their black neighbours.

AFP