French and Malian troops battled Islamist fighters in the city of Timbuktu in day-long clashes Sunday that left three jihadists and one Malian soldier dead, military sources said. The Islamists began their assault with a suicide bomb attack on an army checkpoint late Saturday on the edge of the fabled Saharan city that left a Malian soldier wounded. Militants then infiltrated the city, which French and Malian soldiers recaptured from Islamist rebels in January.

A rebel group seeking independence in northern Mali said on Thursday it had appointed an "administrator" to Kidal in a show of strength after French-led troops liberated the town from an Islamist occupation. The Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (MNLA) told AFP that Mohamed Ali Ag Albessaty, previously a local government functionary, would serve as its top official for Kidal. "We have appointed an administrator to manage the city of Kidal," Mohamed Ag Mamoud, an MNLA leader, told AFP from the town of Tessalit, near the Algerian border.

PARIS (Reuters) - France said on Saturday it could confirm "with certainty" al Qaeda commander Abdelhamid Abou Zeid was killed in Mali in February. "The president of the French Republic confirms with certainty the death of Abdelhamid Abou Zeid after an offensive by the French army in the Adrar des Ifoghas (mountains) in the North of Mali, at the end of February," the Elysee presidential palace said. (Reporting by Lionel Laurent; Editing by Louise Ireland)

By Laurent Prieur MBERA, Mauritania (Reuters) - Fears of ethnic reprisals by government troops in Mali have driven thousands of Arabs and Tuaregs in the country's north to abandon their homes and flee to Mauritania, undermining efforts to reunite their war-torn homeland. At least 20,000 civilians have trekked westward across the dunes to the crowded Mbera refugee camp since mid-January when government forces re-entered northern Mali on the coattails of a French ground and air campaign that swept Islamist rebels from the region.