BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — Mali ‘s junta leader and the country’s president has assumed the duties of defense minister, authorities said Monday, after the incumbent was killed in sweeping, coordinated attacks by separatist and jihadi forces that stunned the West African nation. According to a presidential decree announced on state television, Assimi Goita will remain president while also taking on the new role. Former armed forces chief of staff Gen. Oumar Diarra will assist him as deputy defense minister. The announcement comes after Defense Minister Gen. Sadio Camara was killed on April 25, in a suicide bombing that targeted his home in Kati, a garrison town near the capital, Bamako. Along with Bamako, Kati was one of several cities and towns attacked by militants from the al-Qaida-linked group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, or JNIM, and rebels from the Azawad Liberation Front, a Tuareg-led separatist group, in one of the biggest coordinated attacks in the country in over a decade.…