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Army says kills 5 in clash with militants

Attacks on Western and Malian targets have increased in recent months and spread further south to the capital Bamako despite peacekeeping efforts by a U.N. mission that took over from France

Soldiers gesture in front of La Terrasse restaurant where militants killed five people, including a French citizen and a Belgian citizen, in a gun attack in Bamako March 7, 2015.   REUTERS/Adama Diarra

Malian troops killed five gunmen during a clash with an armed group in the central Mopti region, the army and defence ministry said on Wednesday.

Mali's desert north is home to a number of secular armed groups as well as al Qaeda-linked Islamic militants that briefly held the area until they were scattered by a French military intervention in 2013.

Attacks on Western and Malian targets have increased in recent months and spread further south to the capital Bamako despite peacekeeping efforts by a U.N. mission that took over from France.

Defence ministry spokesman Colonel Diaran Kone did not identify the militant group involved in the latest clash, which took place on Tuesday.

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"The toll was five dead on the terrorist side... and one Malian soldier injured," he said.

Army spokesman Colonel Souleymane Maiga said the army destroyed a base previously used to attack U.N. and army convoys travelling to and from the northern town of Gao.

An army source said the militants were part of a relatively new ethnic Peuhl armed group called the Massina Liberation Front and blamed for a growing number of attacks.

Mali's government and an alliance of northern Tuareg and Arab rebels are due to sign a long-awaited peace deal on the future of the country's north at the weekend.

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