Fighting resumed Saturday in northern Mali between Tuareg rebels and government troops, who lost 33 men captured and three killed since Thursday, local dignitaries said.
The rebels loyal to Ibrahim Ag Bahanga machine-gunned an army patrol 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of Aneibara, half-way between Tinzaouatene, on the border with Algeria, and the regional capital of Kidane, they said.
Fighting was continuing as the rebels tried to prevent the government forces based at Tinzaouatene from falling back on Kidane.
The clashes began Thursday around Tinzaouatene as the insurgents attacked soldiers clearing mines in what the rebels feared was a prelude to a government offensive.
Three soldiers were killed when their vehicle was blown up by a mine and four captured in combat by the rebels.
On Friday five civilians, including a child, were reported killed, again when their vehicle hit a mine near Tinzaouatene, and 29 soldiers were taken prisoner when a convoy of wounded soldiers heading for Kidane was intercepted by rebels.
Another nine wounded troops made it through to Kidane, a local official said Saturday.
The clashes took place in the arid, mountainous region of the landlocked west African country known as the Adrar des Iforas.
Ag Bahanga took up arms and kidnapped 36 soldiers in August 2007, in spite of a peace pact signed in neighbouring Algeria in July 2006.
The last 22 of those troops were released on March 8, following intervention by Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi.
Ag Bahanga is a veteran of two previous insurgencies against the government, which accuses him of seeking to control the region's lucrative illegal drug trade.
Somewhere in the same region kidnappers belonging to a group linked to Al-Qaeda are believed to be holding two Austrian tourists seized in Tunisia last month.
Kadhafi's son was reported Saturday to be negotiating with the kidnappers and to be hopeful they could soon be released, as a Sunday midnight deadline approached.
The Algeria-based Al-Qaeda Organisation in the Islamic Maghreb originally gave the Austrian government until March 16 to secure the release of a number of Islamists imprisoned in Algeria and Tunisia in exchange for the hostages.
But the deadline was extended at the last minute until March 23, amid reports that talks were switching focus to a possible ransom.
