50 rebels, French soldier killed in Mali

HEAVY clashes in northern Mali have left at least 50 rebel fighters and a French soldier dead, following reports that two top Islamist militants have been killed in recent days.

Heavy fighting in northern Mali has left at least 50 rebel fighters and a French soldier dead. Source: AAP

The reports from Chad that its soldiers killed Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the mastermind of January's assault on an Algerian gas plant that killed 37 foreign hostages, as well as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) commander Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, have not been confirmed by other sources.

But both French and Malian officials said clashes had intensified in the region in recent days, with French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian saying a French soldier had died "in some of the heaviest fighting that we have carried out on Malian territory".

A Malian military source said the fighting continued on Sunday near the town of Gao in northern Mali, where Malian troops backed by French forces are hunting down Islamist rebels driven from the region's main cities after a lightning French intervention launched in mid-January.

"At least 50 MUJAO Islamists have been killed since the day before yesterday (Friday)," the source told AFP, referring to rebels from the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa.

France said one its soldiers had been killed on Saturday evening in north Mali, the third death of a French serviceman since the intervention began.

The defence ministry identified the soldier as 26-year-old Corporal Cedric Charenton, from the First Parachute Chasseur Regiment, who had been deployed in Mali since January 25 and had previously served in Afghanistan and Gabon.

The increase in clashes came as Chad announced the killings of Belmokhtar on Saturday and Abou Zeid on Friday.

If the killings are confirmed, the French-led military coalition fighting in northern Mali will have eliminated the Sahel region's two historical al-Qaeda leaders and decapitated the country's Islamist insurgency.

"It would be a blow to terrorism and to the criminal network around this man and other people," British Foreign Secretary William Hague told BBC television in reaction to reports of Belmokhtar's death.

Both Belmokhtar and Zeid were directly involved in most of the kidnappings of foreigners that have plagued the region in recent years.

The reports of their killings have raised fears over the fates of several French hostages held in the region who may have been used as human shields.

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