A French staff sergeant was killed in northern Mali early on Wednesday in an operation by French forces against "an armed terrorist group", President Francois Hollande's office said.

Two other French soldiers were injured in the "violent clash" overnight in the Tigharghar mountain range, Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said.

The U.N. Security Council on Friday urged Mali's warring factions to make progress toward a peace deal at upcoming talks in Algeria, following a wave of deadly attacks on peacekeepers.

In a unanimously-adopted statement, the 15-nation council urged the Bamako government and the six armed groups in northern Mali to "engage in good faith and in the spirit of compromise" during the talks, which open on Sunday in Algiers.

At least seven people were killed Thursday in clashes between rival armed Tuareg groups and their allies in northern Mali, several sources told Agence France Presse.

"There were at least seven dead on both sides and several injured," said an African military source from the MINUSMA U.N. mission in Mali.  

France said Friday its forces had "destroyed" an al-Qaida convoy in Niger carrying a large amount of weapons from Libya to Mali.

The convoy, belonging to al-Qaida's north African branch, was "intercepted and destroyed (Thursday) night in northern Niger... carrying weapons from Libya to Mali," said a statement from the French presidency.

A U.N. peacekeeper from Pakistan was killed on Thursday in the Central African Republic during a flareup of violence engulfing the capital of Bangui after months of relative calm.

Another soldier was severely wounded during the ambush on a joint Pakistani-Bangladeshi convoy and seven others suffered slight injuries, U.N. officials said.

From roadside bombs and rocket attacks to murderous ambushes launched on motorbikes, Mali's ousted jihadists have announced their return in a bloodbath of foreign troops in the desert north.

Fresh violence rocked the Central African Republic on Wednesday, leaving up to five people dead and several others wounded.

The violence was sparked by an incident the day before when a motorcyclist threw grenades injuring several pedestrians in the capital Bangui, an officer from the U.N. peacekeeping MINUSCA force said.

Mali on Wednesday asked the United Nations to send a rapid-reaction force to help end a wave of attacks on U.N. peacekeepers blamed on Islamist fighters who are back on the warpath.

Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop told the U.N. Security Council that it must take "urgent measures" to bolster the U.N. mission in the north after 31 peacekeepers died in recent violence.  

A Senegalese peacekeeper was killed Tuesday as a U.N. camp in northern Mali came under rocket fire in an attack blamed on a jihadist leader driven from the country by French troops.

A peacekeeper was killed Tuesday as a U.N. camp in northern Mali came under rocket fire in an attack said to have been carried out by a jihadist leader driven from the country by French troops.

Iyad Ag Ghaly, who led a Tuareg rebellion in the Sahara before setting up the armed group Ansar Dine, disappeared in January 2013 soon after France intervened to drive Islamist insurgents back from the capital Bamako.