UPDATE 1-Mali leader sacks two generals after ethnic massacre, jihadi attack

Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita sacked and replaced two generals on Sunday after gunmen killed 134 Fulani herders in a surge of violence in the insurgency-plagued country.

The ethnic bloodshed took place less than a week after a deadly assault by jihadists on an army post killed at least 23 soldiers, both in Mali's central region, an attack claimed by an al Qaeda affiliate. The army chief of staff General M'Bemba Moussa Keita was removed and replaced by General Abdoulaye Coulibaly, while chief of land forces General Abdrahamane Baby was replaced by Brigadier-General Keba Sangare.

Malians have grown increasingly frustrated by the failure of government forces to protect them from both jihadist onslaughts and ethnic reprisals. But the massacre of civilians at the villages of Ogossagou and Welingara on Saturday, which left the charred bodies of women and children smouldering in their homes, has shocked a population long inured to gratuitous killing. "We naturally condemn in the strongest terms this unspeakable attack," visiting U.N. Security Council President Francois Delattre told reporters in Bamako after the killings.

"The message that has emerged is a call for accelerated implementation of the peace agreement and reconciliation. The path to peace requires true reconciliation," he added. Despite a 4,500-strong French force in the Sahel region, jihadist attacks have multiplied since they first intervened in 2013, in an effort to push back Islamists and allied Tuareg rebels who had taken over the northern half of the country.

(Reporting by Fadima Kontao Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Angus MacSwan)