Tuareg rebels hand over weapons in north Mali-radio

BAMAKO, Mar 10 (Reuters) Hundreds of Tuareg rebel fighters have emerged from their desert hideout in northern Mali to hand over weapons following a peace deal struck with the government, Malian state radio said today.

More than 600 members of the rebel Democratic Alliance for Change arrived in the northeastern desert town of Kidal on Friday from their Saharan mountain base.

''On March 9 the disarmament of the Democratic Alliance for Change well and truly began in Kidal after they came down from their retreat in Tegharghar,'' state radio said in its report.

''A total of 600 fighters made up of 180 army deserters and 422 recruits on board 200 Land Cruisers (off-roaders) accompanied two truck loads of weapons and explosives,'' it said.

The rebels, who want greater autonomy for the region, presented themselves to a disarmament committee composed of government and rebel representatives as well as Algerian mediators, the report said. It was not immediately possible to independently verify the details.

The Malian government and the Tuareg rebel group agreed last month to start implementing an Algerian-brokered peace deal for the Kidal region.

The agreement set a timetable for disarmament of the rebels, and followed an initial peace accord struck last July.

Algeria's ambassador to Mali, Abdelkrim Ghrib, said at the time that the accord set out terms for 3,000 armed rebels to leave their mountain positions and lay down their weapons.

Various Malian rebel groups, many of them light-skinned Tuareg nomads, launched revolts from Kidal in the 1960s and 1990s demanding greater freedom from a black African-dominated government.

Peace agreements after the 1990s rebellion went some way towards addressing Tuareg demands, with former fighters integrated into the army and Tuareg politicians winning more responsibility.

But under-investment and widespread unemployment have fuelled resentment in a region awash with arms where banditry is rife and largely beyond the control of a government sitting more than 1,000 km away in the capital, Bamako.

Tuareg gunmen attacked army camps in Kidal in May 2006, looting vehicles and arms before retreating to mountains near the Algerian border, raising fears of a full-scale rebellion.

Under the February deal, an international donor forum will be held on March 23-24 in Kidal, sponsored by European, African and Arab banks.

REUTERS MS RAI2240