Niger rebels say kill 17 soldiers, army denies it

NIAMEY, Aug 22 (Reuters) Tuareg-led rebels in Niger said today they had killed 17 government soldiers in one of the bloodiest clashes since they began their revolt in a uranium mining area, but the army said just one soldier died.

The rebel group, which before yesterday's fighting had already killed at least 44 government troops in the West African country's remote Saharan north since February, said it had engaged a heavily armed government military convoy.

''It lasted for four hours ... but they were not able to advance. What is important in this conflict is territory,'' Aghaly ag Alambo, leader of the rebel Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ), told Reuters by telephone.

''It's now 17 dead and several wounded,'' while no rebels were killed or injured, Alambo said.

Ag Alambo said MNJ landmines and gunfire destroyed six vehicles from the government convoy, which he said included troop carriers, armoured cars, trucks carrying ground-to-ground missiles and mounted anti-aircraft missile launchers.

Army chief General Moumouni Boureima said in a statement just one soldier was killed, in a road accident, and seven more wounded -- four when their vehicle hit a mine and three in a gunfight with MNJ rebels.

He said the convoy had been taking food to civilians and military personnel in the tourist oasis town of Iferouane, which is increasingly isolated from the rest of the country.

UNDER SIEGE The MNJ, led by light-skinned nomadic Tuareg tribesmen who rebelled in the 1990s before peace deals quelled that violence, says the region remains neglected and demand a greater share in the mineral wealth of their impoverished desert region.

The group attacked Iferouane, more than 1,000 km from Niamey, in February in its first strike and laid land mines on many of the dirt tracks linking it with the outside world.

Several civilian and army vehicles have hit mines, virtually halting road traffic and forcing up food prices in the town of just a few thousand people -- many of whom have already left.

Flooding in recent weeks has further isolated the town and raised fears the floodwaters may scatter landmines, making it even more difficult to find safe routes in and out.

''The word 'mine' is the death sentence for tourism in the Agadez region,'' Vittorio Gioni, an Italian hotelier who shuttered his hotel in Iferouane and returned to Niamey after the fighting began, told Reuters last month.

A mine explosion killed four military police officers near the ancient town of Agadez on Monday, the government said.

President Mamadou Tandja's government does not recognise the MNJ, which it dismisses as bandits and drug traffickers, and has accused Libya and French state-controlled uranium group Areva, which mines uranium in the area, of backing the revolt.

Areva has since increased the royalties it pays to Niger.

The government accused unidentified ''rich foreign powers'' last weekend of paying mercenaries to lay mines in the region, whose minerals are a major source of state revenue in a country that ranks bottom of the UN Human Development Index.

The former French colony has said it will break the French company's monopoly on mining in the area and has awarded dozens of prospecting permits in the north to mining companies from China, India, Canada, Britain, France and elsewhere.

REUTERS AK RK1930