Al-Qaeda video shows Malians executed for 'collaborating with France'

Two Malians were executed by militants for allegedly collaborating with French counter-terrorism forces, a new al-Qaeda video shows.

The two men, named as Mohamed Ould Beih and El-Hussein Ould Badi - who were respectively accused of being paid to recruit informants and of showing French troops the militant al-Qaeda's weapon stashes - were publically executed, the images released on Friday showed.

Badi was also accused of collaborating with Mauritania to provide it with intelligence about jihadi fighters in Libya.

After the men are shown being shot dead by a firing squad in front of a large group of nomadic tribesmen, a commentary issues the threat of a similar fate to the local population if they are tempted to sell information.

The clip entitled "Traitors 2" was released by al-Qaeda in the Maghreb's (AQIM) media arm Andalus Media, in an attempt to lend it credibility.

It appears to be a sequel to a December 2015 video named "Traitors" in which two Malians and a Mauritanian were killed for similar reasons, also before an audience.

The men in the latest video are identified as being from Timbuktu in northern Mali, but the site of the killings is not identified.

The video was released the same day that a French soldier deployed in Mali sustained fatal injuries after the vehicle he was travelling in hit a mine close to the northern city of Kidal.

The militant group Ansar Dine, which also has ties to Al-Qaeda, claimed that attack on social media.

France established a military presence in the Sahel nation in January 2013 to combat radical Islamist groups including the group behind the video - al-Qaeda - which had overrun key northern cities.

Militants have been driven back from Mali's main cities due to French operations and the presence of a UN mission, but vast swathes of the country remain out of the control of Malian and foreign forces.