[Photo: Members of the security forces stands near La Terrace restaurant, in Bamako. File photo. Photographer: Baba Ahmed/AA]

By Hatice Kesgin

BAMAKO,  (AA): Mali’s military has claimed at least six people, including two soldiers, have been killed in clashes with armed groups in the town of Nara in the west of the country.

A Mali army representative said that the clash took place 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the Mauritanian border Saturday.

According to eyewitnesses before the incident, one truck apparently belonging to Ansar-ud Din, or Assistants of Faith — an armed group in northern Mali — was seen in the town.

On June 20, the government of Mali and a Tuareg insurgent group — which was the country’s biggest rebel organization — signed a peace deal to withdraw from the town of Menaka.

According to the agreement, the armed factions of the so-called ‘Platform’ movement announced that they had laid down their arms.

The armed groups had started fighting in northern Mali in 2012 for independence or greater autonomy; Tuareg forces had taken control of the region by April 2012.

armed group Mali soldier