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.

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.

Security forces killed a man described as the military adviser to the head of an al Qaida affiliate in Algeria in an assault on a mountain hide-out, it was reported.