The dynamics of light pulses with amplitude and phase modulations is investigated for a medium of resonant two-level atoms. It is shown that the pulse-like variations of the phase can be also described in terms of group velocity. It is found that in the nonlinear regime of atom-field interaction, the group velocities of amplitude and phase pulses can have a large imbalance. Namely, amplitude pulses travel at a velocity less than c, whereas the group velocity of phase pulses is greater than the velocity of light in free space or it is even negative. The predicted imbalance of the group velocities can be important in the case of chirped pulses propagating in a resonant medium.
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