Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said in an interview with French media due to be broadcast on Monday that the army is "as we speak, moving towards Kidal, and I think it's a very good thing".

Rebels captured much of the West African state's north in 2012, including Kidal, triggering a war that has since been taken over by jihadists and spread to central Mali, neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died in the conflict, which Mali has struggled to contain even with the help of thousands of foreign troops.

However, the return of Malian troops to Kidal is considered a step towards the government reasserting control over its vast territory.

Soldiers deploying to Kidal is considered a key component in implementing the Algiers peace agreement, struck between the government in Bamako and some rebel groups in 2015.

That agreement is in turn seen as one of Mali's few viable escape routes from a vicious cycle of violence.

Keita said the army should reach Kidal on Friday, after setting off from the northern town of Gao about 200 kilometres (120 miles) south.

He warned that the journey was fraught with danger, however.

"It is therefore normal that the general staff... Malian forces and the allied forces, act cautiously," he told France 24 and Radio France Internationale (RFI).

Malian soldiers are regularly killed in jihadist ambushes or in roadside bomb attacks.

Some 200 men are making their way north to Kidal in several dozen vehicles, a Malian army officer who requested anonymity said.

- Kidal first -

Kidal fell to separatist Touareg rebels in 2012, who remain in control of the city despite UN and French troops present.

The rebels late signed a peace accord with the government in Bamako in 2015, although it remains shaky.

Among other things, the pact provided for former rebels joining the army, which would eventually return north.

The issue of Kidal remains tense, however.

Mali's neighbouring governments are often wary of former rebel groups, for example, suspecting them of cooperating with jihadists. They view the city as a rear base for Islamist militants.

France's position in the city has also fed suspicions across Mali, contributing to calls to end the former colonial power's military presence in the country.

Both French forces and the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Mali support the army's return to Kidal, a senior army officer, who declined to be named, said.

Malian army units returning to the city are so-called "reconstituted" ones, comprised of regulars and former rebels who joined the military after the 2015 peace accord.

Other such units are expected to deploy in northern Malian cities such as Menaka, Gao and Timbuktu, after the soldiers reach Kidal.