The clashes, involving the separatist Azawad Liberation Front (FLA) and the Moscow-run Africa Corps, came as the military has faced a string of assaults in recent weeks.

"Our troops carried out a targeted action this Friday against an Africa Corps patrol," FLA spokesman Mohamed Elmaouloud told AFP.

"We inflicted significant material damage and human losses among the enemy."

The army's general staff acknowledged in a statement that a logistics convoy was ambushed at dawn on Friday in the Kidal region after conducting an "offensive operation against an armed terrorist group".

It claimed that "10 enemy combatants" had been killed.

The Malian army retook several districts from separatists in 2023, among them Kidal, a pro-independence northern bastion.

A separate FLA source said that the military convoy left behind a lot of equipment and that "several Africa Corps mercenaries were killed".

Africa Corps is the successor of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, which diplomatic and security sources confirmed to AFP over the weekend has now left Mali.

The group, overseen by Moscow's defence ministry, is also actively supporting several other African governments.

"The fighters this Friday were fierce. There were losses on both sides. But we'll have to wait for definitive figures," a regional elected official told AFP.

Since 2012, Mali has been mired in violence carried out by jihadist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group, as well as other organisations.

The FLA was created late last year in a merger of several predominantly Tuareg groups.