U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met French President Francois Hollande in Paris on Wednesday to discuss the crisis in Mali on the third leg of a European tour so far dominated by the Syrian conflict.

Kerry, who has hailed France's "successful" mission in Mali, will also hold talks with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and address a joint press conference in the afternoon.

UNICEF said Tuesday it urgently needs $45 million (34.4 million euros) to help children in conflict-stricken Mali, where the threat of violence and trafficking has spiraled, compounding a long-running food crisis.

The money was needed to meet basic needs such as health care, nutrition, education and protection over the next three months, UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado told reporters.

Adama Kamara's market stand is neatly stacked with piles of dead animals he promises will change your life: parakeets to help you find a job, dog skulls to cure headaches, crocodile heads to make you better in bed.

Kamara is a gris-gris man, a seller of traditional west African remedies and charms, and he and his colleagues appear to be the only ones doing a solid business at this market in central Bamako, the Malian capital, as the long conflict rending the country's north takes a toll on the economy.

French warplanes attacked an Islamist base in north Mali at the weekend, wounding four members of the Arab Movement of the Azawad (MAA), after the extremists clashed with Tuareg rebels, MAA and security sources said Monday.

"Four fighters of the MAA were wounded during bombing by the French air force (on Sunday) against our base at Infara," 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the border with Algeria, Boubacar Ould Taleb, a leader of the MAA, told Agence France Presse in the capital Bamako by telephone.

Fresh fighting erupted Saturday in northern Mali between ethnic Tuaregs and an unidentified armed group, security sources told Agence France Presse, the latest violence in the wake of a French-led campaign that drove radical Islamist fighters from major cities.

Tuaregs of the Azawad National Liberation Movement (MNLA) were fighting what one source said "seemed to be Arab fighters" near the northern town of Tessalit, where suicide car bombers killed three people on Friday.

U.S. President Barack Obama sent 40 additional soldiers to Niger to help with intelligence efforts as French and African troops battle an Islamist insurgency in neighboring Mali, the White House said in a letter to Congress Friday.

The U.S. troops join another 60 or so already in the West African country, and are tasked with providing "support for intelligence collection and will also facilitate intelligence sharing with French forces conducting operations in Mali, and with other partners in the region," the president said.

Five people, including two suicide bombers, died Friday in car bombings in northern Mali, a day after fierce urban battles between French-led forces and Islamists left up to 20 extremists dead, officials said.

Two kamikaze vehicles targeting civilians and members of the ethnic Tuareg rebel group the MNLA exploded near the town of Tessalit, killing three and wounding several others, a security source said.

Nigerian security forces were in a "massive manhunt" Friday for seven members of a kidnapped French family after Paris said the abductors had likely separated the victims into two groups.

"As long as there are rumors of their cross-border movements, then security agencies must be intensely searching for them," police spokesman Frank Mba told Agence France Presse, adding that there was a "massive manhunt."

Mali's Prime Minister Diango Cissoko on Thursday ruled out the creation of a federal state as a solution to the conflict in the north of the country, in an interview with French daily Le Monde.

"We are ready to talk about everything with everyone, not only the communities of the north. But it is out of the question to speak of federalism. We will not debate the partition of the country either," Cissoko said.

One of the main Islamist armed groups in northern Mali said Thursday it had sent fighters back into Gao, a city it controlled for nine months before French and Malian troops recaptured it last month.

"Our fighters entered Gao on Wednesday," Abu Walid Sahraoui, a spokesman for the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) told Agence France Presse.