Suspected Islamist gunmen stormed a luxury hotel in Mali’s capital yesterday, firing automatic weapons and seizing more than 100 guests and staff in a hostage-taking incident that left at least 27 people dead.

A Frenchman held for more than three years by al Qaeda’s North African branch was freed yesterday, days after two of the men implicated in his abduction were released.

Islamic militants who prompted global outrage over the kidnapping of more than 270 schoolgirls have opened fire on a busy marketplace, killing hundreds in a new spasm of violence in Nigeria’s north-east.

Two French journalists working for the radio station RFI have been killed in northern Mali hours after being kidnapped by gunmen, the French foreign ministry said.

The ongoing violence in Egypt is playing into the hands of al-Qaeda and gives the group an opportunity to recruit new members as it denounces Western ideologies and democracy, writes Myra MacDonald

More than a dozen people have been injured in two car bomb attacks in Niger.

WHEN Irish soldiers arrived in troubled Mali last week as part of an EU training force, they will have encountered a country where the security situation remains tense and a year-long conflict has had a catastrophic humanitarian impact on the population.

Islamist guerrillas are turning the vast Sahara into a new theatre of war against the West, writes Alex Diaz

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

The UN Security Council said it will consider a request from West African countries for military intervention in Mali to root out al-Qaida-linked Islamists who have seized control of the country's northern region.

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.

Two rebel groups that seized control of the northern half of Mali have agreed to work together to create an independent Islamic state on the territory they occupy.

A police raid on the home of the Jewish school shooting suspect turned into a gun battle then a stand-off today.

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.

Police in Spain have arrested five Algerians suspected of helping to finance an al Qaida-linked terror group in North Africa, the Interior Ministry said today.

A Norwegian and 10 Nigerians were among the United Nations workers killed in a suicide car bomb attack claimed by a radical Muslim group at the world body’s headquarters in Nigeria’s capital last week, the UN said.

At least 16 people have died in a car bomb attack on the United Nations’ offices in Nigeria’s capital of Abuja.

A large explosion struck the United Nations' main office in Nigeria's capital today, flattening one wing of the building.

A video showing a kidnapped Briton and an Italian being held by armed men apparently from an al-Qaida group, is being investigated by the UK Foreign Office.

A US woman has admitted she conspired to help a terrorist cell that sought to train with an al Qaida-linked group and incite an Islamic holy war.

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.

Osama bin Laden warned France in a new taped message that its citizens face being killed in revenge attacks.

Saudi intelligence services have warned of a new al-Qaida terror threat against Europe, particularly in France, the French government said.

Saudi intelligence services have warned of a new terror threat from al Qaida in Europe, “notably France,” Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said today.

The Eiffel Tower was evacuated today after officials received a bomb threat from a telephone booth, the second such alert at the monument in two weeks.

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.

The threat of a terrorist attack on French soil is at its highest as authorities suspect al-Qaida’s North African affiliate may be plotting a conventional bomb attack on a crowded target, the director of the country’s national police said today.

A suicide bomber attempted to drive a truck loaded with explosives into an army barracks in Mauritania, but was shot and killed when he refused to stop.

An elderly French hostage has been murdered by al-Qaida in revenge after a failed attempt to free him left six of the terrorists dead.

A 78-year-old French aid worker held hostage by al-Qaida has been killed in the Sahara.