The Malian Army has arrested around 30 soldiers suspected of involvement in a recent protest in the garrison town of Kati, near the capital, Bamako, an army spokesman says.

The soldiers were arrested in an operation to “eradicate without violence those elements implicated in the Kati incidents,” said army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Souleymane Maiga on Friday, referring to a Monday protest by some soldiers.

“They violated state security and are behind the Kati uprising,” he added.

On Monday, dozens of angry Malian soldiers involved in the country’s 2012 coup d'état staged a protest to express discontent with their not having been promoted alongside others who were involved in last year’s mutiny.

They fired guns in the air, wounding and taking hostage a close aide of Amadou Sanogo, the leader of the group of officers who overthrew then-President Amadou Toumani Toure on March 22, 2012.

Several army forces, including Sanogo, who participated in the 2012 coup, have been promoted since August.

Mali was ruled by a transitional government following the coup until Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was elected on August 11 and sworn in as the new president in September.

The West African country has been the scene of unrest since the 2012 coup. The coup leaders said they mounted the coup in response to the government’s inability to contain the Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country, which had been going on for two months.

However, in the wake of the coup d’état, the Tuareg rebels took control of the entire northern desert region, but the Ansar Dine extremists then pushed them aside and took control of the region.

France launched a war in Mali on January 11 under the pretext of halting the advance of the rebel fighters in the country.

On February 1, Amnesty International said “serious human rights breaches” - including the killing of children - were occurring in the French war in Mali.