Five people, including two suicide bombers, died Friday in car bombings in northern Mali, a day after fierce urban battles between French-led forces and Islamists left up to 20 extremists dead, officials said. Two vehicles targeting civilians and members of the ethnic Tuareg rebel group, the MNLA, exploded near the town of Tessalit, killing three and wounding several others, a security source said. The suicide bomber drivers also died.

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Five people, including two suicide bombers, died Friday in car bombings in northern Mali, a day after fierce urban battles between French-led forces and Islamists left up to 20 extremists dead, officials said. Two vehicles targeting civilians and members of the ethnic Tuareg rebel group, the MNLA, exploded near the town of Tessalit, killing three and wounding several others, a security source said. The suicide bomber drivers also died.

At least two civilians were wounded on Thursday in an apparent car bombing near a military camp housing French and Chadian troops in restive northern Mali, local officials and security sources told AFP. The vehicle "exploded around 500 metres (yards) from the camp occupied by the French and the Chadians," a local official said, with a security source confirming the information. "Two civilians were wounded, they are at the hospital. No one has yet approached the vehicle to see if the driver was still alive."