Suspected Bomb Makers Killed in Northern Mali Blast

Local residents and a security official say one or two suspected bomb makers died in the northern Mali town of Gao on Monday when their explosives detonated prematurely.
The explosion occurred in the late afternoon in the Chateau neighborhood of the northeastern town.
Al Qaeda-linked fighters seized and occupied the town in 2012 but driven out a year later by a French-led military operation.
A senior officer with Mali's gendarmes told Reuters, "there were two dead. They were jihadists who'd come from the village of Kadji. They were in a house working on a bomb when it exploded."
Kadji is a village located across the Niger River from Gao, suspected by local residents of serving as a hide-out for remnants of the Islamist groups.
A witness, who arrived at the scene of the bombing shortly after the explosion, cited residents as saying the building had housed fighters during the Islamist occupation of Gao.