Tuareg rebels attack Mali army camp killing 32

Military officers said the scale of the rebel attack late on Tuesday and early Wednesday against the garrison at Abebara, 90 miles from Kidal, was a worrying escalation of the Tuareg revolt that has hit Mali's northeast Saharan region.

"They were two, three times more numerous than on previous occasions. We think it's a coalition of all the rebel bands," one officer, who asked not to be named, said.

Bloody raid: Malian soldiers were targeted by Tuareg rebels in the north of the country

He added it was also believed the attackers included nomadic fighters from neighbouring Niger, where a Tuareg-led revolt over the last year has killed more than 70 government soldiers, mainly in attacks in Niger's northern uranium mining zone.

A Malian Defence Ministry statement said an "armed band" had assaulted the Abebara camp, where military sources said a unit of the army's desert patrol corps was stationed.

Six government soldiers and around 20 rebels were wounded in the fighting, the ministry said.

The heavily-armed attackers had used some 15 Toyota pickup trucks to make their raid, and had also fired on the army camp from surrounding hills, the sources said.

Mali's government and the rebels, whom the army says are trying to control northern cross-border smuggling routes for arms and drugs, had agreed a Libyan-brokered ceasefire in April.

But the Tuareg insurgents have carried out a number of attacks since the April 3 truce and the Malian army had kept its troops on a war footing in the north because it did not trust the rebel's pledge to respect the ceasefire.

The Malian Tuareg rebels and the Tuareg-led rebel Niger Justice Movement (MNJ) in neighbouring Niger have in the past denied any formal alliance. But Malian and Niger security officials believe they sometimes work together.

Fiercely proud of their independence from outsiders, the Tuaregs staged revolts in Mali in the 1960s and 1990s and in Niger in the 1990s for more autonomy from black African-dominated governments in capitals more than 1,000 km (600 miles) away.

Peace agreements after the 1990s rebellions aimed to grant Tuareg communities a greater degree of autonomy while at the same time integrating former fighters into the national army and promoting Tuareg politicians.

But grievances have resurfaced.