Around 0200 pm local time (0200 GMT), the troops were ambushed en route between Konna and Sevare by an armed terrorist group, according to the army statement, confirming what security sources and a local official had previously told AFP.

"Ground and air reinforcements immediately rushed to the scene of the ambush," added the statement.

One of the security sources said the target was an army resupply mission.

Mali was plunged into conflict in 2012 when local Tuareg radicals, supported by jihadists, revolted in the north of the country.

France intervened militarily to crush the rebellion, but the jihadists scattered and regrouped, taking their campaign into central Mali in 2015 and then into neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso.

In Mali alone, thousands of civilians and troops have died and hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes.