"We are under attack from the rebels ... we are fighting back," said a Malian soldier in Kidal, speaking on condition of anonymity.
He said the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) was attacking from the north while the Islamist fighters Ansar Dine were leading an offensive from the south of the city, 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from Bamako.
A fighter with Ansar Dine, or Defenders of Faith in Arabic, confirmed they had launched the attack.
The MNLA in mid-January relaunched a decades-old fight for independence by the Tuareg in the north which they claim as their homeland, reinforced by heavily armed fighters recently returned from Libya.
They were joined by renowned Tuareg rebel Iyad Ag Ghaly who led a rebellion in the nineties and has returned as the head of Ansar Dine which has ties to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
The two fighting parties have ambiguous links, but the MNLA has distanced itself from Ag Ghaly`s demands that sharia, or Islamic law, be imposed on Mali.
In a series of lightning strikes on northern towns, the Tuareg rebels have overwhelmed the Malian army, and a group of renegade soldiers last week ousted President Amadou Toumani Toure for his "incompetence" in handling the conflict.
Mali`s armed forces have long been on the back foot as they face AQIM and several Tuareg uprisings in the vast desert north, where trafficking of drugs, weapons and western hostages is rife. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
