BAMAKO (AFP) – Between 16 and 26 Al-Qaeda members were killed in a raid by Malian soldiers at their base near the Algerian border, security and other sources told AFP on Wednesday.

Tuesday's raid in the northern region saw government soldiers capturing the base, a security source said, adding: “We counted 26 of the enemy killed. Some were buried by their own people in a common grave before they fled.”
“It's the group of (Abdelhamid) Abou Zeid,” the source said, adding: “We will continue to hunt them down.”
The raid came nearly two weeks after the group said it had killed a British hostage. It was believed to be the first such attack by Malian troops against Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in the country's north.
An independent source in the north confirmed the raid but put the toll at 16.
AQIM claims close ties to Al-Qaeda and emerged out of an Algerian radical group.
It has sought to extend its range into nations on the southern edge of the Sahara and has claimed several attacks in the region.
Earlier this month, U.S.-based monitoring group SITE Intelligence said Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb posted an online statement saying it killed Briton Edwin Dyer on May 31.
The execution marked the first time that Al-Qaeda's north African branch had killed a Western hostage, observers said.
Malian authorities had pledged to pursue the Islamists after Dyer's execution.
Dyer was one of a group of six Westerners kidnapped by Islamic extremists in the Sahel region -- bordering the Sahara desert -- in December and January. He was captured between Mali and Niger while returning from a desert festival celebrating Tuareg culture.
Two Canadian diplomats and two European tourists were released in April and flown to the Malian capital Bamako, but Dyer and Swiss national Werner Greiner remained in captivity. Greiner is believed to still be in the hands of the kidnappers.
Photo: Malian soldiers stand guard in northern town of Kidal, 2006. (AFP/File/Kambou Sia)