Malian soldiers shot dead at least one villager and injured others after a detonation they mistook for an attack in a region plagued by jihadist violence, residents and a military source said Tuesday.

Six people have been killed in attacks on villages of the Dogon ethnic community in central Mali, local officials and a security source said as the UN mission called for an end to the "spiral of violence" afflicting the region.

More than 130 people were killed in an attack on a Fulani village in central Mali on Saturday, the United Nations said, as a delegation visited the country.

Seventeen civilians were killed and 15 were wounded in a blast caused by a booby-trapped corpse in central Mali, security sources and a local official said on Wednesday.

French warplanes struck a group of militants in central Mali over the weekend, killing or wounding 15 of them, the defence ministry in Paris said Monday.

French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe on Sunday urged partners to stand with Paris in driving back militant violence in the Sahel.

Three UN peacekeepers in Mali have been killed by suspected bandits while travelling on leave along the road from the capital Bamako to neighbouring Guinea, sources said.

French armed forces have killed a top jihadist leader in an air and ground ambush in Mali, the government said on Friday, ending a years-long hunt for a man accused of masterminding the kidnapping of Westerners in the Sahel region.

Slovak officials on Wednesday said they had no role in the Mali abduction of a former Slovak secret service agent who the government had sought to extradite two years ago.

The West African country of Mali has invited Qatari investors to participate in major projects in the fields of infrastructure and agriculture, private sector leader Qatar Chamber announced Monday.

At least eight UN peacekeeping troops have been killed in an attack in northern Mali, the organization confirmed on Sunday via its peacekeeping mission in the country.

A consignment of 24 military armored personnel carriers has been delivered to Mali by the Air Transport Wing of the Amiri Air Force which airlifted them on board three C-17 military aircraft.