Tuareg militants killed several Malian soldiers during clashes in the rebel bastion of Kidal today, a United Nations source said, as the insurgents claimed to have taken control of the town.
The fighting shattered an uneasy calm which had held since the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) took 32 civil servants hostage during a battle which left eight Malian soldiers and 28 rebels dead.
"The noise of gunfire has stopped... There are prisoners and deaths among the Malian army's ranks," a source from the MINUSMA, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali, told AFP, adding that the rebels appeared to have the upper hand.
Mohamed Ag Rhissa, one of the leaders of the separatist MNLA, told AFP by telephone his group had taken "control the whole town of Kidal", adding that "we have prisoners".
The fighting first broke out during a visit to Kidal on Saturday by Prime Minister Moussa Mara, whose government is backed by French soldiers who have helped dislodge rebels and armed Islamic extremists from the restive desert north.
The government has said that the MNLA is being backed in Kidal by Islamist fighters from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and others.
"Our men are still on the ground fighting the joint forces of AQIM, MUJAO and other militants. That's all we can say at the moment," said a Malian defence ministry source.
The hostages were freed on Monday as 1,500 Malian troops poured into Kidal, sent to restore government control to the bastion of Mali's Tuareg separatist movement, 1,500 kilometre (900 miles) northeast of the capital.
Mali descended into crisis in January 2012, when the MNLA launched the latest in a string of Tuareg insurgencies in the north.
A subsequent coup in Bamako led to chaos, and militants linked to Al-Qaeda overpowered the Tuareg to seize control of Mali's northern half.
A French-led military operation launched in January 2013 ousted the extremists, but sporadic attacks have continued, and the Tuareg demand for autonomy has not been resolved.
