Source: Reuters Reuters

Fierce fighting between rival army factions broke out in Mali's capital, Bamako on Friday, in an ominous sign of the military's weakness and amid further attacks from Islamist rebels.

At least one person was killed and five injured when forces loyal to Mali's unelected government stormed the camp of the "red beret" presidential guard. Residents fled in panic as heavy gunfire echoed from the Djikoroni-Para paratrooper base on the Niger river.

Witnesses reported smoke rising from the base. The red berets are loyal to Mali's former democratic president, Amadou Toumani Touré, who was deposed in a coup last March. The elite paratroopers refused to be redeployed to the north of the country, where French and Malian soldiers have been battling Islamist rebels.

Troops loyal to Mali's new government – led by interim prime minister Dioncounda Traoré – encircled the base with armoured vehicles early on Friday, witnesses said. The soldiers opened fire on women and children who had gathered near the camp gates, killing one and injuring two children, it was reported.

"Since 6am the soldiers arrived in armoured cars and pickup trucks, all of them armed to the teeth to attack our base. The women and children tried to stop them from entering the camp. They shot teargas at us and started shooting volleys in the air," Batoma Dicko, a woman who lives in the military camp, told Reuters. The camp includes housing for military families. Doctors said that a man in his 20s was killed after being shot in the face.

The incident bodes badly for Mali's future after French forces pull out. French and Malian troops have succeeded in swiftly recapturing the northern towns of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal, seized last year by al-Qaida-allied jihadist fighters. France's defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, indicated this week that he wants to reduce France's military presence in Mali and hand over "in a few weeks" to an African contingent.

On Friday, French forces took the remote Saharan desert town of Tessalit. The area, which is 30 miles from the Algerian border, is known as a haven for radical Islamist groups. French special forces parachuted in to seize the town and airfield. They now control its entrance and administrative buildings, Malian officials said. There are reports that western hostages, including several French nationals, could be held in mountains between Tessalit and Kidal.

But the power struggle in the capital suggests that without the continuing assistance of outside forces, Mali could soon descend into anarchy and in-fighting again, both between murky political factions in the south and rival rebel groups in the north. There are also indications that the Islamist rebels – seemingly routed followed France's military intervention last month – are now beginning to wage a guerrilla war.

On Friday, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a military checkpoint in Gao, the northern town ruled by Islamist fighters until just two weeks ago. No one else was hurt. It was the first suicide bombing since the French intervened. Last week, rebels placed several mines on the road outside Gao, blowing up a military convoy and killing four Malian soldiers.

Mali officials said the bomber drove up to the checkpoint on a motorbike at around 6am. He was wearing an explosive belt. Residents heard the blast from their mud-walled homes on the dusty road nearby.

"It shook so loudly I thought it had hit my house," one resident, Agali Ouedraogo, said.

Bamako residents, who had been celebrating the French battlefield successes, expressed their frustration. "I don't understand how at a moment when French and African forces are here to fight our war in our place … Malian soldiers, instead of going to fight at the front, are fighting over a stupid quarrel," one Bamako resident, Assa, told Reuters. "This is a real shame. I feeling like dropping my Malian nationality."