The authorities in Mali have moved quickly to stop a mutiny which was threatened by discontented soldiers.

The soldiers suspected of being behind the rebellion are part of the contingents which have returned from peacekeeping missions in the Central African Republic and Sierra Leone.

News of the attempted mutiny, which took place earlier this week, is only now becoming more widely known.

Military intelligence opened an investigation into the rebellion as soon as the first leaflets put out by the mutineers started appearing in the garrisons of Bamako and Katieh.

The authorities seized documents and arrested a number of soldiers, who have since been released.

Some people in Mali are saying the releases were intended to demonstrate that the event was only of minor importance.

But others say the soldiers were released to avoid aggravating growing discontent within the army.

Echoes of Ivory Coast

The rebelling soldiers were demanding the payment of bonuses due to them for serving outside the country, and protesting over conditions of life in army barracks.

An army spokesman insisted that those who had served abroad had been paid their bonuses, and that the government had had to borrow from foreign donors to honour its commitments.

A BBC correspondent in Mali, Said Penda, says the significance of recent events in Ivory Coast - where a rebellion by soldiers recently returned from abroad developed into a fully-fledged coup d'etat - were evidently not lost on the Malian authorities, who acted with great speed.

Other commentators have said recently that the Ivory Coast coup could prompt similar attempted coups elsewhere in West Africa.