(Adds details, French comment) By Paul-Marin Ngoupana BANGUI, March 4 (Reuters) - Rebels in Central African Republic said they attacked French army positions in the northern town of Birao on Sunday after French warplanes bombed their troops, killing three of them. Rebel spokesman Ahmat Amadine said the Union of Democratic Forces for Unity (UFDR) had seized Birao and its airport on Sunday, a day after an unsuccessful assault on the isolated northeast town near the border with strife-torn Chad and Sudan. "The French Mirages bombed our positions and we sustained three deaths and some wounded in our ranks," Amadine told Reuters. "We responded by attacking the French positions and they have also taken several wounded," he said, adding that the townsfolk had fled into the bush to avoid the fighting. France's Defence Ministry confirmed the rebels had attacked French forces in Birao, but denied they had sustained any casualties. "The French detachment defended itself as they have the right and the duty to do, and they were supported by Mirage F1 fighter jets," Christophe Prazuck, a Defence Ministry official, told Reuters. "Several vehicles were destroyed so in all likelihood there were casualties on the rebel side." Dramane Zakhari, head of operations for the UFDR, said the French army and government forces had repelled an attack on Birao on Saturday, but only after the rebels had been able to seize a large cache of weapons. France sent special forces backed by helicopters and fighter jets to dislodge rebel fighters from Birao and a large swathe of its former colony in December, and has maintained forces in and around the town since. "We appeal to France to observe a strict neutrality and leave aside this problem which only concerns Central Africans," Amadine said. Diplomats in Bangui say the ill-resourced government army has full control of as little as 2 percent of the country, which is larger than mainland France. The deeply impoverished, landlocked country has been racked by years of instability with a series of coups, army mutinies and rebel uprisings, especially in the northwest where over the past 18 months government troops have burned dozens of villages suspected of aiding rebels opposed to President Francois Bozize. (Additional reporting by Swaha Pattanaik in Paris))
