French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on Thursday said a military operation in Mali was probable to stop the west African country's political crisis.

"The use of force in northern Mali is probable at a time or to another," the daily Le Figaro quoted Fabius as saying.

"France, for obvious reasons, can not be in the first line in the intervention," he told reporters, without elaborating .

Mali, a former French colony, was plunged into violent clashes as rebels wanted to create a separate homeland in the north where the Islamists seized three Malian cities with the help from regional al-Qaeda insurgents.

The UN Security Council has said it was not ready yet to back a plan by the West African bloc, the ECOWAS, to send 3,000 troops to Mali.

"A clearer plan, more information about what the objectives" of such deployment are needed, a UN diplomt told the BBC last week.