Seventeen soldiers were killed and 35 wounded in central Mali Tuesday in an assault on their base that authorities called a "coordinated terrorist attack."

"The toll has increased: we have lost 17 men and 35 are wounded," Mali's defence minister Tieman Hubert Coulibaly said. Authorities had earlier announced that 12 soldiers were killed. 

Coulibaly called the assault a "terrorist attack on our positions," but did not say who was responsible.