BRUSSELS: Mali's Foreign Minister Tieman Coulibaly said Thursday that the presence of Islamists linked to Al-Qaeda in the north of the conflict-torn West African state constitutes a "global threat."

"Today, it's a question of mobilising the international community in its entirety to come to our help in our country, but also to come to the aid of the whole region because what is happening in Mali represents a global threat," Coulibaly told a press conference after joining emergency talks with European Union foreign ministers.

With reference to an ongoing raid on a remote desert gas field in Algeria, where initial reports said dozens of hostages and kidnappers died, the minister said that "jihadists" operating in the region were part of an international "drug trafficking" organisation.

Simply a "criminal enterprise," he said adding that their actions had "nothing to do with politics" and amounted to a "genuine threat to civilisation."