Three soldiers were killed on Thursday in two simultaneous attacks in northern Burkina Faso, where the armed forces are struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency, security sources said.

The attacks are part of increasing jihadist violence in the West African country, where 700 people have been killed in the nearly five years since fighting spilled across the border from Mali, according to an AFP count.

"Early this morning, an armed group attacked a military unit in Kelbo. Two soldiers were killed during this attack," a security source told AFP.

"Almost at the same time, a separate armed group attacked a unit in Namissiguima. Another soldier was killed there."

Militants took away motorbikes and a pickup truck during the attacks, another security source said confirming the two incidents.

Attacks in Burkina Faso, which borders Mali and Niger, have targeted mostly the north and east of the country, though the capital Ouagadougou has been hit three times.

Most of the violence is attributed to jihadists affiliated with Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State group, with around 500,000 people internally displaced by attacks, according to the UN.

Attacks have intensified this year as the underequipped, poorly trained Burkina Faso army struggles to contain the Islamist militancy.

An ambush on a convoy transporting employees of a Canadian mining company killed 37 people earlier this month, the deadliest attack in nearly five years of jihadist violence.

Security forces also said this month they had killed more than 50 jihadists in a series of operations.

Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian called for a "general mobilisation against terrorism" and announced plans for voluntary recruitment for the armed forces in vulnerable regions.

DR Congo army kills 7 militia after attacks
Bukavu, Dr Congo (AFP) Nov 21, 2019 - Congolese troops killed seven members of a militia who attacked its positions in two villages in the country's conflict-ridden east, the army said on Thursday.

Dozens of rival militias operate in DR Congo's North and South-Kivu provinces, including the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an Islamist-rooted group blamed for killing hundreds.

The area has been torn for more than two decades by armed conflicts fed by ethnic and land disputes, competition for control of a wealth of mineral resources and regional rivalries.

"A (Mai-Mai) militia group on Tuesday, November 19, attacked the army's positions in Rusankuku and Kananda villages (in South-Kivu's Fizi region)," local military spokesman Captain Dieudonne Kasereka told AFP.

Mai-Mai refers to a community-based militia in the DRC, which defends its territory against other armed groups.

Kasereka said the attackers were pushed out of the villages and "seven militia bodies were identified". He said a soldier was also wounded in the assault.

Gadi Mukiza, mayor of the Minembwe region in South-Kivu, also confirmed the attack, without giving further details.

Since May, the area has seen a resurgence of ethnic violence over land disputes between the Banyamulenge tribe -- made up of Congolese Tutsi herders -- and the Bafuliro, Banyindu and Babembe farmers.

In October, the UN mission in the DRC said several hundred people were forced to flee their homes, which were burned as a result of the violence.

Number of soldiers killed in Mali clash rises to 43
Bamako (AFP) Nov 21, 2019 - The number of soldiers killed in clashes with jihadists in eastern Mali earlier this week rose to 43 on Thursday, security sources said.

Mali and Niger forces were carrying out a joint operation on Monday when a patrol was attacked by "terrorists" near the northeastern town of Tabankort.

The death toll was earlier put at 30 soldiers and 17 jihadist fighters but revised upwards after the discovery Thursday of the bodies of 13 soldiers.

The bodies were "found by a Malian army patrol" in two separate locations, the source said.

Monday's action was another heavy loss for the army, which lost a hundred soldiers in two jihadist attacks in a month in the autumn.

Northern Mali fell into the hands of jihadists in 2012 before the militants were forced out by a French-led military intervention.

Since then, however, the border regions of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have become the scene of repeated clashes with jihadist fighters.

Mali's army has been struggling to contain the Islamist insurgency despite help from African neighbours, MINUSMA, the 13,000-strong UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, and former colonial power in the region France.

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