The head of Mali's main Tuareg-led rebel groups on Sunday said he was convinced that consultations underway in Algeria to finalize a peace agreement with the Bamako government would bear fruit.

"We remain convinced that efforts and discussions underway in Algeria will be successful," said Bilal Ag Cherif, who heads the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), the APS news agency reported.

Based in Mali's inhospitable northern desert, French troops are waging an attritional campaign against a ghost-like, invisible enemy -- a master in the guerrilla art of hit-and-run.

More than two years after the French-led Operation Serval routed jihadists advancing on the capital Bamako, armed groups in the area are no longer able to carry out coordinated attacks.

Three United Nations troops were wounded on Thursday when a convoy including the head of peacekeeping in Mali triggered landmines in the country's restive north, sources within the force said.

MINUSMA commander Major General Michael Lollesgaard and the mission's police chief "escaped death on Thursday in the Timbuktu region when mines on the route of their convoy wounded three peacekeepers from Burkina Faso," a civilian manager in the force told AFP.

A Bangladeshi peacekeeper was shot dead and another wounded, the United Nations said Tuesday, in the second attack in days in Mali's capital on what is considered the world's most dangerous U.N. mission.

A statement from MINUSMA, the U.N.'s peacekeeping force in Mali, said "an incident" involving one of its vehicles took place in the area of Bamako airport.

Militants opened fire on two Bangladeshi peacekeepers in Mali's Bamako on Monday, killing one, the second attack within days in the capital of what is considered the most dangerous U.N. mission in the world.

One of the peacekeepers, both ranked as privates, died on the scene and the other was rushed immediately to hospital with bullet wounds after the ambush on their SUV, Bangladesh army spokesman Nur Islam said Tuesday.

Despite cries of alarm from European politicians over the deaths of migrants in the Mediterranean, African leaders have been silent over an issue they fear underlines their weak governance, say campaigners.

For years Libya has been a stepping stone for Africans seeking to get to Europe, fleeing conflict, economic hardship and instability often in rickety, unseaworthy vessels.

Up to nine civilians, including an aid worker for a European charity, were killed after rebels withdrew from a village they had seized in northern Mali, armed loyalist and anti-government groups said on Friday.

The west African nation's main Tuareg-led rebel alliance, the Coordination of Movements of Azawad (CMA), said in a statement overnight that "the Malian army conducted the summary and public executions of nine people in the town of Tin Hama" on Thursday.

An unidentified gunman opened fire on a United Nations residence in the Malian capital Bamako on Wednesday, wounding a civilian guard and damaging vehicles, the organization’s MINUSMA peacekeeping mission said.

The assailant attempted to set fire to one of the force's vehicles parked in front of the residence housing troops in the city's southeastern Faso Kanu neighborhood around 2:30 am (0230 GMT), the force said in a statement.

Mali's main Tuareg-led rebel alliance killed three soldiers on Monday in an ambush in the west African nation's restive desert north, military sources told AFP.

The Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) attacked the troops as they slept early in the morning, about 100 kilometers (62 miles) south of the ancient caravan city of Timbuktu, a Malian army officer said on condition of anonymity.

A French court on Friday sentenced a 60-year-old man to eight years behind bars for fighting alongside an Al-Qaida group in Mali.

The Paris criminal court handed down the sentence to Gilles Le Guen -- the first conviction under a law passed at the end of 2012 allowing authorities to prosecute those suspected of waging Jihad abroad.