By Tiemoko Diallo

BAMAKO, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Mali's President Amadou Toumani Toure called late on Friday for the release of all civilian and military hostages being held by Tuareg-led rebels in the remote desert north of the West African country.

Speaking in public for the first time since fighters loyal to insurgent chief Ibrahima Bahanga launched a series of attacks a month ago, Toure welcomed the release on Friday of five civilians and two soldiers but said the rest must also be freed.

"I am delighted by the liberation of some of them on Friday but we demand this be extended to all the other hostages as soon as possible," he said in an address to the nation broadcast as part of Saturday's independence day celebrations.

The Tuareg gunmen abducted around 20 Malian soldiers accompanying an Agriculture Ministry delegation in late August in a town in the far northeast near the border with Niger, where Tuareg-led rebels have also staged attacks in recent months.

There have been subsequent strikes on military patrols in northern Mali in which soldiers have gone missing and it is unclear how many hostages the insurgents are holding.

Bahanga has been disowned by a broader Malian Tuareg rebel alliance, the Democratic Alliance for Change, which signed a peace deal with Toure in Algiers in July 2006.

"I would like to repeat that the Algiers accord ... is the only framework for dialogue," Toure said in his address.

"This accord, which is being implemented, will be respected in conformity with the engagements made in the presence of the Algerian mediators."

In neighbouring Niger, the Niger Movement for Justice (MNJ) has killed more than 40 soldiers this year and taken several dozen hostage in a region which contains some of the world's largest uranium reserves and where foreign firms are active.

Although the insurgents in the two countries have not declared any formal links, security officials suspect they may be co-operating with each other.

The light-skinned desert nomads staged rebellions in both countries in the 1990s complaining of marginalisation by black African-dominated governments.

Peace deals in both former French colonies brought an end to major hostilities more than a decade ago but sporadic unrest has continued and resentment remains rife in the southern Sahara, still awash with arms and full of unemployed youths.

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