FIVE people, including two suicide bombers, have died in car bombings in northern Mali, a day after fierce urban battles between French-led forces and Islamists left up to 20 militants dead, officials say.
Two kamikaze vehicles targeting civilians and members of the ethnic Tuareg rebel group the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) exploded near the town of Tessalit, killing three and wounding several others, a security source said.
A spokesman for MNLA in Burkina Faso confirmed the report.
Mohamed Ibrahim Ag Asseleh said "the two kamikazes were killed and in our ranks there were three dead and four seriously wounded".
The blasts came after the Islamist rebels claimed a car bomb attack on Thursday near a camp occupied by French and Chadian troops in the city of Kidal, local officials said.
At least two civilians were reported wounded in that attack.
The vehicle, apparently driven by a suicide bomber, was targeting the camp but exploded before it reached it, killing the driver, an official in the Kidal governor's office said.
France sent in its troops in January to help the Malian army oust Islamist militants who last year captured the desert north of the country.
Thousands of soldiers from African countries have also deployed since then.
The French-led forces are increasingly facing guerrilla-style tactics after initially meeting little resistance in their drive to oust Islamists from the main northern centres of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu.
The Tuareg MNLA blamed Friday's car bomb attacks on the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), one of Mali's main Islamist groups.
The MUJAO made no comment on the latest attacks, but on Thursday it said it was responsible for the car bomb in Kidal.
"More explosions will happen across our territory," MUJAO spokesman Abu Walid Sahraoui warned.
He also said the group had sent fighters to Gao, 1200km from the capital Bamako, where battles erupted overnight on Wednesday after about 40 Islamists infiltrated the city.
The Islamists briefly occupied the courthouse and the city hall but French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Malian and French forces backed by French helicopters repelled the attack on Thursday.
Le Drian said initially that five Islamists were killed in the fierce street fighting, but on Friday the French defence ministry said between 15 and 20 had died.
Sporadic gunfire was heard on Friday morning in Gao, an Agence France-Presse journalist there said.
MUJAO spokesman Sahraoui said the militants were determined to recapture the city: "Our troops have been ordered to attack. If the enemy is stronger, we'll pull back only to return stronger, until we liberate Gao."
Mali's Prime Minister Diango Cissoko said this week that large-scale military operations in the north were winding down, but sporadic fighting has continued.
A French legionnaire was killed on Tuesday in the mountainous Ifoghas region.
The French military said that their Panthere 4 operation in the Ifoghas had already left 30 Islamists dead since the start of the week.
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