Mali's government and allied fighters signed a peace accord Friday in a ceremony attended by numerous heads-of-state but missing the crucial backing of the war-scarred nation's main Tuareg-led rebel groups, AFP correspondents witnessed.

The Coordination of Azawad Movements had provisionally initialled the document a day earlier but is demanding concessions and its three principal factions did not attend the rubber-stamping ceremony in the Malian capital Bamako.