Security forces in Algeria have surrounded Islamist fighters who killed two people and have taken 41 foreign hostages, including one Irishman.

French fighter jets pounded Islamist rebel strongholds deep in northern Mali yesterday as Paris poured more troops into the capital Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country’s north.

A spokesman for a radical Islamic group in northern Mali has confirmed that a leader of al-Qaida’s North African branch was killed in a car crash.

A German engineer kidnapped in the Nigerian city of Kano about five months ago has been killed in a failed rescue attempt, officials say.

Rebels who seized control of Mali’s remote north effectively partitioning the country in two have announced a ceasefire, saying they had reached their military goal.

Gunmen murdered a German man in Mali’s most famous city and seized three men from the Netherlands, South Africa and Sweden, as officials ordered a plane to evacuate foreigners from the tourist destination.

THE killing of al-Qaida’s number two leader deprives the group of a multi-talented manager who helped it spawn offshoots around the world and survive a US counter-terrorism campaign in Pakistan, analysts say.

France’s new foreign minister has rejected a reported message from al-Qaida’s North Africa branch saying that Paris should negotiate with Osama bin Laden over the fate of five French hostages seized from an African mining town.

FIVE French hostages and two other foreigners kidnapped in Niger by an al-Qaida gang are alive and being held in the mountains of northern Mali, President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said yesterday.

AL-QAIDA’S north African wing has said it had carried out its threat to kill a British hostage it was holding in the Sahara.