Militants from the al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine group in Mali have ignored international outcry, and on Sunday continued to destroy mausoleums of Sufi saints in the famed city of Timbuktu.

The Islamist fighters have used pick-axes, shovels and hammers to shatter earthen tombs and shrines of local saints, labelling them idol worship.

The Ansar Dine groups backs strict sharia law, and considers the local Sufi version of Islam in Timbuktu to be idolatrous.

But historians say their campaign of destruction in the UNESCO-listed city is pulverising part of the history of Islam in Africa, which includes a centuries-old message of tolerance.

During the past year, Sufi shrines have also been attacked by hardline Salafists in Egypt and Libya.

Ansar Dine is made up of Islamist fighters of various nationalities including Malians, Algerians and Nigerians.

In combination with allies such as the al Qaeda splinter group MUJWA, they have appropriated a separatist uprising by local Tuareg rebels and now control two-thirds of Mali's desert north territory.

This territory is now bigger than France, heightening fears that Mali will become a haven for jihadists.

The Timbuktu attack recalls the two 6th-century statues of Buddha carved into a cliff in Bamiyan in central Afghanistan, which were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001.