PARIS (Reuters) - The Malian army remains poor, corrupt and barely functional months after the launch of a European training mission to rebuild its strength, a French colonel said on Monday, urging a rapid payout of pledged donor funds. The European Union approved in January a 15-month training mission to rebuild a badly paid and poorly equipped Malian army, with the aim of making it strong enough to fend off potential attacks by Islamist militants.

By Cheick Diouara GAO, Mali (Reuters) - A suicide bomber killed three Chadian soldiers at a market in the northern Malian town of Kidal on Friday, a Chadian military official and three witnesses said. Chadian and French soldiers have been stationed in the desert town since late January to fight Islamist rebels hiding in the region's mountainous borderlands.

Five Malian soldiers died Friday when their helicopter crashed in the centre of the war-torn west African nation, local government and army sources told AFP. "The crash of a Malian army helicopter killed all five passengers, Malian soldiers. This happened near Sevare. The Malian army is in mourning," a local official from the Mopti regional administration told AFP. A Malian military source confirmed the incident, saying a colonel was among the five dead and the cause was mechanical failure. sd/mrb/ft/mfp

Under the cover of large acacia trees, the militants' camp was invisible from the sky and had probably been deserted only a few hours before the arrival of French troops. The soldiers had made the discovery on day two of Operation Gustav, a hunt for Islamist fighters in a valley in northern Mali and one of France's largest military operations during its three-month intervention in its former colony.