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(CNN) -- International leaders meet in the Malian capital Friday to discuss military intervention as al Qaeda-linked rebels tighten their grip in the nation's north.

The meeting will include regional and United Nations officials.

Last week, the U.N. Security Council approved a resolution that gives regional leaders 45 days to provide detailed plans for an international military intervention. The meeting in Bamako on Friday is a followup to the resolution.

Mali plunged into chaos in March after a military ruler overthrew the president, shaking one of West Africa's most stable democracies.

The coup leader stepped down in May and transferred power to a civilian transitional government. However, uncertainty looms as Islamist militants roaming the north wage a campaign of destruction.

Soon after the coup, ethnic Tuareg rebels and Islamist militants took advantage of the power vacuum to seize the northern portion of the country.

Two groups with ties to al Qaeda later toppled the Tuareg movement, and now control two-thirds of northern Mali, an area the size of France.

West African leaders and the transitional government have asked the United Nations Security Council to authorize the military intervention.

The resolution approved last week tasked U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon with working with African leaders to submit to the Security Council within 45 days "detailed and actionable recommendations" in preparation for the deployment of an international military force in Mali.

As leaders work to find a solution, grim reports of human rights violations are emerging in the north.

Radical Islamists are compiling a list of unmarried mothers, raising fears of cruel punishments such as stoning, amputations and executions, a senior United Nations official said this month.

The list will include women who have had children out of wedlock and those who are unmarried and pregnant, according to Ivan Simonovic, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for human rights.

The Islamists have vowed to impose a stricter form of Islamic law, or sharia. They say the law condemns relationships outside marriage.

Extremists have conducted public executions, amputations, floggings and other punishments.

In addition to human rights violations, Islamists razed tombs near the desert city of Timbuktu on Thursday -- the latest attacks targeting cultural heritage sites in the north.

The rebels have destroyed tombs and shrines in the past few months in the city, which features a number of ancient and prominent burial sites.

Islamist militants regard such shrines as idolatrous and thus prohibited by their religion. They have targeted Sufi shrines, which they say they are sacrilegious. Sufism is a mystical dimension of Islam considered offbeat by Islamic hardliners.