Two Malian soldiers were killed and three were wounded by a highway bomb on Tuesday, the army said, in the latest violence to hit the volatile central region of Mopti. The blast occurred on a road between Baye and Pissa, it said on social media. Mali has been struggling to contain an Islamist insurgency that erupted in the north in 2012, and which has claimed thousands of military and civilian lives since. Despite thousands of foreign troops in Mali, the conflict has engulfed the centre of the country and spread to neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger. Planting bombs under well-travelled roads is a favourite tactic of jihadists operating in the Sahel. Otherwise known as improvised explosive devices, they kill and maim scores of victims every year in Mali. Mali's army has recently equipped itself with armoured vehicles in order to respond to the threat. bur-lal/sba/eml/ri