By Tiemoko Diallo

BAMAKO, Sept 19 (Reuters) - Mali's army killed one member of an illegal militia and arrested 31 other members of the group blamed for killing Tuareg nomads in the northeast of the West African country, the Malian military said on Friday.

One soldier was also killed in the army assault on Wednesday against the village of Fafa in the Ansongo region, which served as a base for the anti-Tuareg group calling itself Ganda Izo (Sons of the Land) led by a former army officer, Amadou Diallo.

Malian officers said Diallo recently created the Ganda Izo militia, consisting mainly of members of the Peulh and Sonrais ethnic groups, to confront Tuareg nomadic fighters who last year launched a rebellion in northeast Mali. The Tuareg rebels have been demanding greater rights and more jobs for their people.

"He (Diallo) said he wanted to re-establish security by responding against attacks, rustling of cattle and hijacks of vehicles carried out by the Tuareg rebels," one officer in Bamako, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

He said Diallo's illegal group numbered around 100 fighters and the army was hunting for the militia chief after he and others of his men escaped Wednesday's assault on Fafa, around 950 km (590 miles) northeast of the capital Bamako.

Large quantities of arms were captured in the rebel attack.

President Amadou Toumani Toure's government ordered the army to dismantle the Ganda Izo militia after five Tuaregs were killed earlier this month in an attack by the armed group against the village of Ourola in the Ansongo region.

DESERT ZONE

The government, which has been working with northern neighbours Libya and Algeria to forge a peace deal with the Tuareg rebels, feared that if unchecked the anti-Tuareg militia's activities could trigger wider ethnic conflict.

The militia leader, Diallo, had previously been working in Dakar, Senegal with a Malian company handling imports.

The army was hunting for him and his surviving men in the remote desert zone near the border with Niger, where Tuareg-led rebels are also fighting an anti-government insurgency.

Fiercely proud of their independence from outsiders, the nomadic desert Tuaregs staged revolts in Mali in the 1960s and 1990s and in Niger in the 1990s for more autonomy from black African-dominated governments in faraway capitals.

A previous Malian anti-Tuareg militia, called Ganda Koy, had also emerged then and Diallo was believed to have been a member.

Peace agreements after the 1990s rebellions aimed to grant Tuareg communities more autonomy while integrating former fighters into the national army and promoting Tuareg politicians.

But since last year, Tuaregs in Niger and Mali have taken up arms again, motivated by resentment over unresolved grievances and what they see as unwarranted interference in their traditional lands by government armies and foreign companies. (For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: http://africa.reuters.com/) (Editing by Pascal Fletcher)

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