Mali's defense minister said Monday that very little had been done to set up a possible military intervention by a West African force in the country's Islamist-occupied north.

"Unfortunately, beyond declarations in principle and development of operational procedures, very little has been done on the ground," Colonel Yamoussa Camara told a meeting of army chiefs from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc.

Up to 60,000 people gathered Sunday for a giant peace rally in Mali, a country split in two after Islamists wrested control of northern desert regions after a March coup in the capital Bamako.

The meeting for "national peace and reconciliation" in Bamako's main stadium was called by the country's top Muslim body and drew several key politicians including Prime Minister Cheikh Modibo Diarra.

The U.N. Security Council urged Mali's military Friday to return to barracks and refrain from "any interference" in politics during the transition to civilian rule.

The 15-member body also said it was awaiting clarification on a possible peacekeeping operation by the regional ECOWAS group to help Bamako wrest the north back from hardline Islamist rebels.

A member of the elite Red Beret paratrooper unit which served ousted Malian leader Amadou Toumani Toure has been shot dead in his barracks, military sources told Agence France Presse on Friday.

"Staff Sergeant Amadou Traore was shot in unclear circumstances in a military camp" near Bamako on Thursday night, a colleague said on condition of anonymity.

Muslim jihadists occupying northern Mali on Thursday said they had cut off the hand of a thief in accordance with strict Islamic law which they have imposed on the population.

The first reported amputation since the extremists seized the north of the country four months ago came as diplomats warned of a ticking time-bomb which could put the world at risk if the region becomes a safe haven for terrorists.

An Islamist leader who wants to see Mali adopt sharia law vowed Tuesday to support regional mediation efforts to resolve the ongoing political crisis in the ruptured west African nation.

Iyad Ag Ghaly, who heads the Ansar Dine Islamist group that holds the northern city of Kidal and other towns, met with Burkina Faso's Foreign Minister Djibrill Bassole, who is leading the search for a peaceful solution to the 20-week-old emergency that has seen Islamists seize Mali's north.

Residents of Gao in Islamist-occupied northern Mali on Sunday prevented extremists from chopping off the hand of a thief, the penalty for stealing according to strict sharia law, residents told Agence France Presse.

"They (Islamists) were not able to cut off the thief's hand. Very early on Sunday hundreds of youths stormed independence square in Gao to prevent the sentence being carried out," a local teacher told AFP by telephone.

Islamists in northern Mali have stoned an unmarried couple to death, the first reported sharia killing since they occupied the area, ratcheting up pressure on an embattled interim government.

The execution came as interim President Dioncounda Traore finalized a unity government which foreign partners have demanded be formed by Tuesday to take decisive action against the jihadists who have cleaved the nation in two.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said any military intervention in Mali's rebel occupied north would have to be undertaken by a properly-equipped and organized African force.

"There is a lot of preparatory work involved," Fabius, who is currently visiting West Africa, told Agence France Presse in an interview in the Senegalese capital Dakar.

Three European aid workers released in Mali after being kidnapped by an al-Qaida-linked jihadist group were on Thursday "safe and sound" in neighboring Burkina Faso, a negotiator said.

"We are in Gorom-Gorom (a town in northern Burkina Faso). We have all the hostages," the negotiator said, adding that the two Spaniards and one Italian snatched in Algeria in October 2011 were "safe and sound... everyone is well".