(Bloomberg) -- Unidentified gunmen attacked a military camp on the outskirts of Mali’s capital in what authorities described as a terrorist attack, the latest in a growing number of raids close to the city.

At least two assailants died in the raid on the Kati barracks about 17 kilometers (10 miles) north of Bamako around 5am on Friday morning, the army said in a statement on its official Facebook page. 

The authorities believe it was a “jihadist attack,” army spokesman Colonel Nema Sagara said by text message.

The attack by suspected Islamist militants is the closest large-scale assault to the capital since 2015, when a group of militants stormed the Radisson Blue Hotel in the city and killed 22 people.

“The situation is under control and an operation is underway to flush out the perpetrators and their accomplices,” the army said in the statement.

Earlier this month, six people, including two gendarmes and a police officer, were killed in a rare attack near the capital, the Security and Civil Protection Ministry said on July 15. On June 24, a police station was targeted on the same road, killing one policeman, according to a separate statement.

Mali has been under military rule since 2020, when a group of low-ranking officers, unhappy with the previous administration’s failure to counter a sprawling Islamist insurgency, wrested control over the land-locked gold producer. 

A 2013 international military intervention spear-headed by France has failed to stem violence that has spread to neighboring countries. 

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