MAN ARRESTED FOR TRYING TO STAB PRESIDENT WITH A KNIFE

Mali’s presidential office on Tuesday said there was an attempted stabbing attack against the West African country’s transitional president, Assimi Goita at the Grand Mosque of Bamako.

In a statement on Twitter, the office said the attacker was immediately overpowered by the bodyguards, adding that investigations were ongoing.

According to local media outlet Malijet, the country’s largest news portal, the attempted attack happened while Goita was attending the prayer of Tabaski (Eid al-Adha).

“The attacker tried to stab the president when the imam was leaving to sacrifice his sheep. But it was another person who was hurt,” it reported.

AFP reported that two armed men, including one who wielded a knife, staged the attack.

Goita has since been taken from the scene, according to an AFP journalist who witnessed the incident. The journalist said it was not immediately clear whether the leader had been wounded.

Religious Affairs Minister Mamadou Kone told AFP that a man had “tried to kill the president with a knife” but was apprehended.

Latus Toure, the director of the Great Mosque, said an attacker had lunged for the president but wounded someone else.

AFP was not immediately able to confirm the accounts.

By AFP