BAMAKO (AFP) — Tuareg rebels in Mali have attacked Tinzaouatene, a remote town near the northern border with Algeria, local government and army sources said Friday.
"Armed bandits this morning attacked our troops based in Tinzaouatene. Our troops are retaliating," a senior local government official told AFP by telephone from Kidal region.
Several military sources reached by telephone in the region, some 2,000 kilometres northeast of the capital, confirmed the rebel attack.
Residents contacted by phone in this region of Mali, a vast west African country straddling the Sahara desert, said gunfire was still being heard by midday.
Low-level violence has for weeks simmered in the region, where armed Tuaregs -- an indigenous, nomadic Berber people -- have been demanding resources for development.
The rebelling Tuaregs are led by a renegade of the main Malian Tuareg movement, Ibrahim Ag Bahanga, whom authorities say is trying to seize the northern Tinzaouatene border post to use it for drug trafficking.
"It's Ag Bahanga who attacked first," said the local government official.
On Wednesday, the rebels fired at and slightly damaged a US military aircraft dropping provisions to Malian troops in the area.
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