A notorious Islamist militia leader known as "Red Beard" has been killed in French missile strikes in north-eastern Mali, a senior Malian army officer told Agence France Presse.

Omar Ould Hamaha was a commander of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), armed groups which occupied northern Mali for almost ten months in 2012.

As many as 12 fighters from the al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) group have been killed in a counter-terrorism operation by French forces in Mali who used drones to track down the Jihadists, France's defense minister said Thursday.

The offensive took place Tuesday night in northeastern Mali, Jean-Yves Drian said.

At least two people were injured when a U.N. vehicle hit a mine in the restive north of Mali on Wednesday, a military source told Agence France Presse.

"The car belonged to Medecins du Monde-Belgium. It hit a mine next to the airfield at Kidal. There were at least two injured, both Malians," said the African military source, who was not authorized to give her name.

Morocco's King Mohammed VI was due to land in Mali Tuesday for a five-day tour to support the country's peace process, with Rabat aiming to wrest the diplomatic initiative from its more dominant regional rival Algeria.

The king will be guest of honor of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita for his first visit since attending the Malian leader's inauguration in September.

Militants launched rockets in a night attack on the Malian desert caravan town of Timbuktu without managing to hit any of their targets, military sources told AFP on Monday.

A senior Malian army officer contacted in Timbuktu said three rockets were fired on Sunday night by "terrorists", the word the military uses to refer to armed Islamist groups, but added that "fortunately there were no casualties".

A leading Islamist militant group has kidnappped a team of Red Cross workers in northern Mali who had been reported missing, an official from the jihadist group said on Tuesday.

The members of the International Committee of the Red Cross team "are alive and in good health" in the hands of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, a MUJAO official told Agence France Presse in a telephone call.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Monday that one of its teams was missing in strife-torn northern Mali, but it was not clear whether they had been kidnapped.

"We can confirm that the ICRC lost contact with one of its vehicles, with five people on board," ICRC spokesman Alexis Heeb told Agence France Presse.

Armed men from the ethnic Peul community have massacred at least 30 Tuaregs in a revenge attack in northern Mali, an elected regional official said Friday.

Oumar Maiga told Agence France Presse the Peul had carried out the attack on Thursday in Tamkoutat, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of the city of Gao, "to retaliate against the kidnapping" of one of their own people.

Community leaders gathered in Mali Thursday to mark an international day of campaigning against female genital mutilation, publicly renouncing a practice that is still legal in the deeply-conservative west African nation.

Moussocoura Sidibe, the spokesman for 14 communities representing numerous ethnic groups in the Muslim-majority country, said they were taking "the solemn commitment to abandon the practice of FGM and early and forced marriage involving girls in our communities".

Germany's government Wednesday approved increasing the number of soldiers sent to crisis-torn Mali as part of an EU-led mission to train the national army for its fight against Islamic extremists.

Up to 250 Bundeswehr soldiers may now join the mission, up from the current limit of 180, under the decision which must still be backed by the Bundestag lower house of parliament.