Ethnic Tuareg and Arab militias from Mali are gathering for talks this week in Burkina Faso ahead of peace negotiations with the government, participants said on Monday.

"We want to get together to harmonise our points of view on certain issues before meeting with Bamako (the government)," Mohamaed Ag Assaleh, president of the Coalition of the People for Azawad (CPA), told AFP.

Discussions among groups that lay claim to a homeland in northern Mali they call Azawad were due to start on Monday, but were delayed until the following day as "some delegations have not yet arrived", he added.

"A large part of our team is already in (Burkina Faso's capital) Ouagadougou, but we are waiting for others," said a source close to the Tuareg National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), one of the main armed movements from the desert north of the vast and poor west African country.

Participants were also expected from "Algeria, Mauritania and even Niger," added the source based in Burkina Faso, stressing that "this is an important meeting for everybody".

Mali's neighbours are particularly concerned about insurgency in the sub-Saharan region by movements linked to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which operate across borders.

In January 2012, the Tuareg group launched its latest uprising for home rule in northern Mali and radical Islamists leapt on to their bandwagon, supplanting the MNLA which had declared independence for Azawad.

French military intervention from January 2013 played a key role in freeing key towns and forcing the jihadists into desert hideouts. French troops are still on the ground in the former colony.

Peace negotiations between the Bamako government and the various armed movements are due to start in Algiers on September 1, on the basis of a roadmap agreed by the two sides late in July.

The talks in the Algerian capital were delayed from August 17. Since the election of Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, discussions have frequently stalled, while armed groups have carried out deadly raids in the north.

Libya gets new chief of staff to tackle militias threat
Benghazi, Libya (AFP) Aug 25, 2014 - Parliament in Libya has named a new military chief of staff tasked with tackling armed militias that control vast areas of the violence-plagued North African nation.

"Colonel Abdel Razzak Nadhuri was chosen by 88 out of 124 MPs present and promoted to the rank of general" on Sunday, parliament spokesman Mohammed Toumi told AFP.

Nadhuri replaces General Abdessalam Jadallah al-Abidi, who was grilled by parliament on August 10 on the army's inability to restore law and order to Tripoli and Benghazi, the country's two largest cities where militiamen have run rampant.

Parliament, which sits in Tobruk, 1,600 kilometres (1,000 miles) east of the capital, held Abidi responsible for the deteriorating security situation and blamed him for backing certain militias that in theory report to the army.

"General Abidi was in fact sacked" after his appearance, Toumi said.

Libya's new chief of staff comes from Marj some 1,100 kilometres east of the capital.

During the 2011 uprising against long-time dictator Moamer Kadhafi, his battalion joined insurgents in second city Benghazi, the cradle of the revolt.

Overnight Saturday-Sunday, the Libyan parliament branded as "terrorists" Islamist militias and jihadists who challenge its legitimacy, and stated its intention to fight back through the regular armed forces.

"The groups acting under the names of Fajr Libya and Ansar al-Sharia are terrorist groups and outlaws that are rising up against the legitimate powers," parliament charged in a statement.

"These two groups are a legitimate target of the national army, which we strongly support in its war to force them to halt their killings and hand over their arms," MPs said.

Fajr Libya is a coalition of Islamist militias, mainly from Misrata, east of Tripoli, while Ansar al-Sharia, which Washington also brands a terrorist group, controls around 80 percent of the eastern city of Benghazi.

Islamist militias openly challenged the legitimacy of parliament on Sunday after announcing their seizure of Tripoli airport, plunging Libya's rocky political transition into fresh crisis.

Tripoli airport, 30 kilometres (20 miles) south of the capital, has been shut since July 13 because of deadly clashes between the Islamists and the Zintan force of former rebels that previously controlled it.