The UN Peacekeeping Mission was targeted in the Ansongo suicide bomb attack.

Recurrent violence continues to characterize northern Mali with the latest case being a suicide bomb attack on the UN Peacekeeping base in the town of Ansongo  in the Gao region on Wednesday, April 15, 2015. The UN mission in Mali (MINUSMA) disclosed in a statement that at least three people were killed in the suicide attack and 16 other people were wounded, Associated Press reported. The report says at least nine UN peacekeepers were wounded along with seven civilians. The bomber is said to have struck around 11:30 a.m. There has been no immediate claim of responsibility for Wednesday, April 15 attack.

However, suspicion has immediately fallen on Islamic extremist groups that have carried out similar attacks on U.N. forces in the region. Human Rights Watch in a new report this week that outlines the growing violence, said that at least 35 peacekeepers had been killed and more than 130 wounded since the U.N. mission officially began in July 2013, Sun Herald reported. The Gao region was under the control of al-Qaida and other extremists for about a year until a French-led military intervention scattered them in early 2013.

Reports say over the past two years, remnants of the jihadist groups have launched scores of attacks though the pace has accelerated in recent months. The  growing violence has been particularly worrisome as it has encroached on regions far from the northern strongholds in Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal. In March 2015, for instance, a masked gunman opened fire inside a popular restaurant in the capital of Bamako, killing five people including two foreigners.