Clashes in northern Mali between a Tuareg separatist group and jihadist fighters have left nine dead, Tuareg officials said Saturday. The fighting pitted Al Qaeda-linked Islamist groups against the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) -- a secular separatist Tuareg group that currently supports the government. "After the fighting, we recorded four dead and two wounded in our own ranks... There were five dead on their side," Mohamed Ibrahim Ag Assaleh, a top MNLA official based in neighbouring Burkina Faso, told AFP.

The Malian military accused Tuareg rebels on Tuesday over an armed attack previously blamed on Islamist fighters which left four civilians dead in the west African nation's war-torn north. An army statement said a van carrying five people to the town of Tonka in the Timbuktu region on Thursday last week was attacked by gunmen who killed four of the passengers. Several sources interviewed by AFP, including Tonka mayor Mamady Konipo, had blamed the deadly attack on suspected Islamists.

Feb 27 (Reuters) - TOP STORIES ----------- ROME - Italy's stunned political parties searched for a way forward on Tuesday after an inconclusive election gave none of them a parliamentary majority and threatened prolonged instability and a renewal of the European financial crisis. - - - - ALMATY - World powers hope Iran will respond positively on Wednesday to their new offer to lift some sanctions if Tehran scales back nuclear activity the West fears could be used to build bombs.

French warplanes attacked an Islamist base in north Mali at the weekend, wounding four members of the Arab Movement of the Azawad (MAA), after the extremists clashed with Tuareg rebels, MAA and security sources said Monday. "Four fighters of the MAA were wounded during bombing by the French air force (on Sunday) against our base at Infara," 30 kilometres (19 miles) from the border with Algeria, Boubacar Ould Taleb, a leader of the MAA, told AFP in the capital Bamako by telephone.