By Tiemoko Diallo
BAMAKO, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Tuareg rebels exchanged fire on Friday with a remote Mali army garrison in northern Mali after shooting at a U.S. military plane earlier this week, a Malian Defence Ministry official said.
The rebels led by insurgent leader Ibrahima Bahanga laid down "harassing fire" from automatic weapons from around dawn against the garrison at Tin-Zaouatene close to the border with Algeria, the official, who asked not to be named, said.
The Malian troops fired back and the gunfire later halted.
There was no immediate report of casualties.
Tuareg rebels on Wednesday fired on a U.S. military plane flying food supplies to Malian troops fighting the Tuareg desert insurgents, Malian officials said.
"Their objective is clear, to take 'Tin-Za'," the official said, adding the Malian army was reinforcing its positions both at Tin-Zaouatene and elsewhere in the region, where Bahanga's fighters have carried out raids and ambushes in recent weeks.
The Malian official said the rebels had blocked access roads to the garrison town by laying mines as part of their efforts to prevent supplies getting through.
On Wednesday, a U.S. Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules was hit by small arms fire while dropping food supplies to the Tin-Zaouatene garrison, but it returned safely to Bamako and none of its crew were hurt, U.S. officials said.
Washington views Mali as a staunch ally in its global war on terrorism and its forces regularly train Malian troops. U.S. military officials said the resupply flight to Tin-Zaouatene was not a regular occurrence, but they did not rule out others.
The nomadic light-skinned Tuaregs in northern Mali and neighbouring Niger have long complained of being marginalised by black-dominated governments ruling far away in the south.
Some of the nomadic fighters, who staged an uprising in the former French colonies in the 1990s, have renewed attacks in recent months in both countries.
They demand more autonomy and a greater share in their region's wealth. But the Niger and Malian governments have dismissed them as renegades and bandits involved in arms- and drugs-trafficking.
Mali has appealed for international help to counter the rebel raids in its far north.
