Algeria warns hostage death toll to worsen

Algeria has warned other nations to prepare for a higher body count from a hostage bloodbath at a gas plant that was overrun in what France called an "act of war" by al-Qaeda-linked fighters.

Algerian troops on Sunday reportedly found the bodies of 25 hostages and captured five kidnappers at the In Amenas gas plant, deep in the Sahara desert, a day after storming the remaining part of the complex still in rebel hands.

Governments scrambled to track down missing citizens as more details emerged after the final showdown between special forces and fighters who had taken hundreds hostage, demanding an end to French military intervention in Mali.

Dozens of hostages appear to have died. Survivors' photos seen by AFP news agency showed bodies riddled with bullets, some with their heads half blown away by the impact of the gunfire.

"They were brutally executed," said an Algerian who identified himself as Brahim, after escaping the ordeal, referring to Japanese victims gunned down by the hostage-takers.

Witnesses have said nine Japanese people connected to plant builder JGC were killed in the 72-hour ordeal. One Japanese man who survived gave a chilling account published on Monday in the Daily Yomiuri newspaper.

The unidentified man was quoted as telling colleagues how the gunmen had dragged him from his barricaded room, handcuffed him and executed two hostages standing nearby.

"I was prepared to die," he said, before his captors abandoned him and other hostages who had been bundled into a vehicle that came under a hail of bullets. He then trudged for an hour through the desert to safety.

Ennahar television reported that the bodies of 25 hostages were found on Sunday by security forces combing through the plant, and that five hostage-takers had been captured alive.

Thirty-two kidnappers were also killed in the standoff, and the army freed 685 Algerian workers and 107 foreigners, the interior ministry said.

"I fear that it (the death toll) may be revised upward," Algerian Communications Minister Mohamed Said told a radio station, ahead of a news conference at 1330 GMT on Monday by Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal.

French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian described the hostage-taking as an "act of war" because of the large number of hostages involved.

The one-eyed mastermind of the hostage-taking, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, said in a video posted online that it was carried out by 40 fighters from the Muslim world and "European countries".

His al-Qaeda-linked group "Signatories in Blood" threatened to stage attacks on nations involved in the French-led operation to evict Islamists from Algeria's neighbour Mali, and said it had been open to negotiations.

"But the Algerian army did not respond... preferring to stage an attack which led to the elimination of the hostages," it said in a message published by the Mauritanian news agency ANI.

Most hostages were freed on Thursday in the first Algerian rescue operation, which was initially viewed by foreign governments as hasty, before the focus of public condemnation turned on the hostage-takers.

Among the hostages killed were at least one Algerian, one Colombian, one American and two Romanians. Those still unaccounted for include several Japanese nationals, five Norwegians, two Americans and two Malaysians.

The plant is run by Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil and Sonatrach of Algeria.

An Algerian employee of BP who identified himself as Abdelkader said he was at a security post on Wednesday with colleagues when he saw a jeep with seven people inside smash through the barrier and screech to a halt.

One of the fighters demanded their mobile phones and ordered them not to move, before disabling the security cameras.

"He said: 'You are Algerians and Muslims, you have nothing to fear. We're looking for Christians, who kill our brothers in Mali and Afghanistan and plunder our resources'."