Rebels kill six Senegal soldiers in Casamance: military source

Six Senegalese soldiers have been killed in an attack apparently carried out by former rebels from the separatist Casamance Movement of Democratic Forces, military officials said Saturday.

"Yesterday (Friday) ... a Senegalese army patrol returning to its base was attacked by armed elements supposedly belonging to the MFDC. There were six dead, four wounded and two missing," the source told AFP.

The attack, one of the most deadly in recent years, took place near the village of Sare Boya, three kilometres (two miles) from the border with Guinea-Bissau, in the southern Casamance region about 120 kilometres (70 miles) east of the regional capital Ziguinchor, Colonel Ousmane Sar, an armed forces spokesman, told AFP.

Sar put the toll at "six dead, three wounded and no missing.

"In three years we have not had such a heavy toll in the army," he said.

Sar said the attackers fired anti-tank rocket-propelled grenades at a military vehicle which had become stuck before fleeing south to the Guinea-Bissau border.

Border controls have been stepped up, he added. The attack was the third since early September.

Earlier this month, officials in Casamance called for the reopening of talks between the Dakar government and the former rebels following the killing of a government soldier in an attack blamed on the MFDC.

The MFDC began an armed uprising in 1982 and made peace with the Dakar government in 2001, and then again five years ago.

The Casamance region is separated geographically from the rest of Senegal to the north by Gambia.

On August 21, a military official reported several clashes between the army and former rebels in Casamance.

Suspected MFDC members have also been blamed for killing three civilians in attacks on vehicles in the region in August and this week.

Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said last month he would pursue bids to bring peace to the region, saying he deplored the violence.

Moustapha Bassene, a member of a peace panel for Casamance, told AFP in Ziguinchor Senegal should "rapidly open talks with the MFDC including Gambia and Guinea-Bissau" which both border the troubled region.