Junta leaders in Mali faced international and domestic pressure to step down on Monday as Tuareg rebels took advantage of the political instability and closed in on a key northern town.

Some officers staged a coup last Wednesday, claiming the government was not giving troops enough resources to effectively fight Tuareg rebels.

The calls for the junta's departure come on the 21st anniversary of the last coup, when now-President Amadou Toumani Toure led the overthrow of dictator Moussa Traore. He was deemed a hero by many a year later, when he held the nation's first democratic election.

"Our aim is clear, to get the junta to leave," said Soumaila Cisse, who would have been one of the main presidential candidates in the planned April election that has since been canceled by military rulers.

Internal calls to step down

In the capital, Bamako, still tense four days after the coup, hundreds from 38 political parties gathered to show their solidarity against the junta. The assembly issued a statement demanding an immediate return to constitutional order, the opening of all borders, the released of arrested government officials and for the canceled elections to be held as planned.

"This coup d'etat is unconstitutional, and we will not accept it," Cisse said.

The only support the coup has received comes from one small opposition party.

Many of the arrested government figures, including the prime minister and foreign minister, have begun a hunger strike to protest their detention at a military barracks outside of Bamako.

"There are 14 of us in a room of 12 square meters, sleeping three to a mattress," said a message from one of the officials sent to the AFP news agency. "Our basic rights are being violated."

President Toure, meanwhile, is believed to be safe and protected by his loyalist paratrooper guard, but his whereabouts are unknown.

Cold reception worldwide

The international community has also responded frostily to the junta with rebukes, calls to step down and suspension of aid.

The African Union suspended Mali, and Europe and Canada have frozen aid. The United States has threatened to do the same.

On Tuesday, The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) will meet in Abidjan to discuss the coup.

Tuaregs take advantage

Tuareg rebels in the northern part of the country are taking advantage of the political chaos in Bamako, closing in on the key city of Kidal. Government and diplomatic sources from the Sahara's nomadic Tuareg people say the rebels are negotiating with soldiers in Kidal, which they hope to take over without a fight as early as Monday.

In the East, Tuareg fighters killed Amadou Diallo, the head of a militia fighting beside the army, along with eight of his fellow fighters Sunday, several sources reported. An army source claimed he had died in an ambush.

The Tuareg desert tribes in January launched their first rebellion since 2009 in a decades-old campaign for independence. It was anger among rank-and-file troops at the government's handling of the Tuareg conflict that led to the coup in the first place.

tm/ng (AFP, AP)