Six people were killed on Friday in an extremist attack at the Malian headquarters of an international anti-terror task force, the G5 Sahel. Many people were also injured when a suicide bomber in a vehicle painted with UN colors blew up at the entrance to the G5 base in Sevare, a military source in the G5 Sahel force told AFP. Pictures from the seen by Reuters, showed the twisted charred remains of a vehicle, a crater, and surrounding walls hit by projectiles. “The attackers fired rockets at the headquarters and some of them infiltrated the compound. There was an exchange of fire,” Defense Ministry spokesman Boubacar Diallo told Reuters. A UN source in Sevare, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the compound was also hit by a car bomb but that gunfire had died down by mid-afternoon. A spokesman for the G5 force, which is made up of soldiers from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania, confirmed the attack but did not have further details. It is the first attack on the headquarters of the five-nation force, set up in 2017 to roll back extremist insurgents and criminal groups in the vast, unstable Sahel region. "We transported the bodies and the injured to the hospital, but we dont know whether some of the injured have died in hospital. There are six dead on the ground," the military source told AFP. Some of the injured were transported to the Somino Dolo hospital in the regional capital, Mopti. The entrance to one of the bases buildings was destroyed in the blast. It was unclear whether there were people in the building, the G5 Sahel source told AFP. The attack came three days before a meeting in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott between French President Emmanuel Macron and the heads of the G5 Sahel states to discuss progress made by the force. Residents in Sevare hid inside their homes, according to Bouba Bathily, a trader who sheltered from the gunfire in his house. "Help came from everywhere -- were not hearing gunshots at the moment," Moussa Kalossi, a watchman in a hotel near the camp, told AFP. The arrival of military support was confirmed by a Malian military source. The G5 is scheduled to operate alongside Frances 4,000 troops in the troubled "tri-border" area where Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso meet, and alongside the UNs 12,000-strong MINUSMA peacekeeping operation in Mali. The G5 Sahel was scheduled to be fully up and running in March, but its deployment has faced delays, equipment worries and accusations of human rights abuses. On Tuesday, the UN said Malian soldiers within the G5 Sahel force had "summarily" executed 12 civilians in a market in central Mali in May in retaliation for the death of a soldier. Malian Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga said that the government had "taken the necessary measures" after the bloodshed, which he said he condemned. France intervened militarily in Mali in 2013 to help government forces drive Al-Qaeda-linked extremists out of the north. But large tracts of the country remain lawless despite a peace accord signed with ethnic Tuareg leaders in mid-2015 aimed at isolating the extremists. The violence has also spilled over into both Burkina Faso and Niger. Earlier Friday, French military headquarters said troops from its so-called Barkhane mission in Mali had killed or captured 15 extremists on June 22 in a joint operation with local forces. The clash took place in a woodland area of the Inabelbel region, southeast of Timbuktu, it said in a statement. A group of about 20 extremists were attacked using helicopters and jet fighter support after they were spotted by Malian commandos, it said.