Mali's Prime Minister Moussa Mara said Sunday the country was "at war" against terrorists in the rebel-controlled northern city of Kidal after clashes between separatist militants and the Malian army left 36 dead.

"The terrorists have declared war on Mali, so Mali is at war against these terrorists. We will mobilize the resources to fight this war," Mara told Agence France Presse by telephone.

Separatist militants shot dead a Malian soldier as violent anti-government protests erupted ahead of Prime Minister Moussa Mara's visit to the rebel-controlled northern city of Kidal on Saturday.

The trip, part of Mara's first tour of the west African nation's restive northern desert since his appointment in April, was delayed as shots rang out, felling the trooper near the regional governor's office.

Malian Prime Minister Moussa Mara arrived in the rebel-controlled northern city of Kidal on Saturday for a trip that had been delayed when the army exchanged gunfire with Tuareg separatists, aides said.

The visit was due to be the second leg of his first tour of the west African nation's restive northern desert since his appointment in April, but he stopped briefly in the neighboring region of Gao instead upon the news of the violence.

Mali's Prime Minister Moussa Mara began a first visit since his appointment six weeks ago to the west African nation's rebel-infested northern desert on Friday.

Mara will travel 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) northeast of the capital Bamako to the lawless region of Kidal, where several hundred youths and women were demonstrating against the visit at the local airport, according to the governor's office.

A Malian soldier was killed and 46 others were injured Thursday when their military transporter crashed, the army said.

The accident in the capital Bamako "occurred due to a technical fault in the vehicle," said army spokesman Souleymane Maiga.

Two Malian soldiers were killed and more than 40 injured on Thursday when their military transporter crashed, the army said.

The accident in the capital Bamako "occurred due to a technical fault in the vehicle," said army spokesman Souleymane Maiga. 

A dozen Islamists have been killed over the past week by the Algerian army in the southern Tamanrasset province near the border with strife-torn Mali, the defense ministry announced Monday.

Soldiers found the bodies of two Islamist fighters on Monday at Tin Zaouatine in Algeria's far south, after a gun battle with the army which has been hunting militants in the area since May 5.

France said Thursday it will deploy 3,000 soldiers to combat Islamist violence in the vast and largely lawless Sahel region of Africa.

"Our role is to pursue counter-terrorism in north Mali, the north of Niger and in Chad," Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said in a television interview.

Armed Islamists in northern Mali have set up a commando unit that has executed alleged collaborators accused of helping French troops and Tuareg rebels, military sources said Tuesday.

"At least 11 people accused of being informers for (French military operation) Serval or the (Tuareg) MNLA (National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad) have been slain in the past 11 months by the Islamists," one of the Malian security sources told Agence France Presse.

Mali has denounced as a "cowardly and despicable murder" the death of a French hostage announced by one of the west African nation's top jihadist groups.

The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), a splinter group of Al-Qaida's regional branch, told AFP on Tuesday Gilberto Rodrigues Leal was "dead, because France is our enemy" although it did not explicitly spell out that the Frenchman had been murdered.