DOUENTZA, Mali — French troops took control on Wednesday of the airport of Mali's northeast town of Kidal, the last urban stronghold held by Islamist rebels, as they moved to wrap up the first phase of a military operation to wrest northern Mali from rebel hands.

A three-week ground and air offensive by French forces aimed at initially ending a 10-month Islamist rebel occupation of major towns is expected to eventually hand over to a larger African force.

The Africans' task will be rooting out insurgents hiding in the desert and mountains near Algeria's border.

"They (the French) arrived late last night and deployed in four planes and some helicopters," Haminy Belco Maiga, president of Kidal's regional assembly of Kidal, told Reuters.

However, the deployment of French troops to remote Kidal puts them in direct contact with pro-autonomy Tuareg MNLA rebels operating there.

The Tuaregs, whose separatist rebellion last year was hijacked by the Islamist radicals, say they are ready to fight al-Qaida, but many Malians blame them for triggering the collapse of democracy and division with their northern revolt.

France's military operation in its former West African colony involves around 3,500 troops on the ground backed by warplanes, helicopters and armored vehicles. It is aimed at heading off the risk of Mali being used as a springboard for jihadist attacks in the wider region or Europe.

French and Malian troops retook the major Saharan trading towns of Gao and Timbuktu at the weekend.

There were fears that many thousands of priceless ancient manuscripts held in Timbuktu, a UNESCO World Heritage site, might have been lost during the rebel occupation, but experts said the bulk of the texts were safe.

The United States and European governments strongly support the Mali intervention and are providing logistical and surveillance backing but do not intend to send combat troops.

The MNLA rebels, who want greater autonomy for the desert north, said they had moved fighters into Kidal after Islamists left the town earlier this week.

"For the moment, there is a coordination with the French troops," said Moussa Ag Assarid, the MNLA spokesman in Paris.

There were no reports of Malian government troops being in the town.

The MNLA took up arms against the Bamako government a year ago, seeking to carve out a new independent desert state.

Kambou Sia / AFP - Getty Images

People cheer as soldiers of Malian Col. Alaji Ag Gamou enter on Jan. 29, in Ansongo, a town south of the northern Malian city of Gao. Troops from Niger and Mali entered Ansongo on Jan. 29, which along with Gao was recaptured by French-led soldiers over the weekend in a lightning offensive against radicals holding Mali's north.

After initially fighting alongside the Islamists, by June they had been forced out by their better armed and financed former allies, who include al-Qaida North Africa's wing, AQIM, a splinter wing called MUJWA and Ansar Dine, a Malian group.

Risk of attacks, kidnappings
But as the French wind up the successful first phase of their offensive, doubts remain about just how quickly the U.N.-backed African intervention force, known as AFISMA and now expected to exceed 8,000 troops, can be fully deployed in Mali to hunt down the retreating al-Qaida-allied insurgents.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said the French military operation, codenamed Serval (Wildcat), was planned to be a lightning mission that would last just a few weeks to avoid getting bogged down.

"Liberating Gao and Timbuktu very quickly was part of the plan. Now it's up to the African countries to take over," he told the Le Parisien daily. "We decided to put in the means and the necessary number of soldiers to strike hard. But the French contingent will not stay like this. We will leave very quickly."

Fabius warned that things could now get more difficult, as the offensive seeks to flush out insurgents with experience of fighting in the desert from their wilderness hideouts.

"We have to be careful. We are entering a complicated phase where the risks of attacks or kidnappings are extremely high. French interests are threatened throughout the entire Sahel."

An attack on the In Amenas gas plant in Algeria earlier this month by Islamist fighters opposing the French intervention in Mali led to the deaths of dozens of foreign hostages and raised fears of similar reprisal strikes across North and West Africa.

Need for reconciliation
While the French operation has made destroying Islamist fighters, positions and assets with air strikes a priority, analysts say a long term solution for Mali hinges on finding a politicalsettlement between the northern communities and the southern capital Bamako.

Interim President Dioncounda Traore said on Tuesday his government would aim to hold national elections on July 31.

After months of being kept on the political sidelines, the MNLA said they were in contact with West African mediators who are trying to forge a national settlement to reunite Mali.

"We reiterate that we are ready to talk with Bamako and to find a political solution. We want self-determination, but all that will be up to negotiations which will determine at what level both parties can go," Ag Assarid said.

However, there have been cases in Gao and Timbuktu and other recaptured towns of reprisal attacks and looting of shops and residences belonging to Malian Tuaregs and Arabs suspected of sympathizing with the MNLA and the Islamist rebels.

France has called for international observers to be deployed to ensure human rights abuses are not committed.

"Reconciling the Tuaregs with their Malian co-citizens will be extremely complicated," said Francois Heisbourg, a special adviser at the Foundation for Strategic Research, a Paris-based think-tank.

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Why France is taking on Mali extremists

KONNA, Mali - French forces in Mali have seized the airport and the bridge over the Niger River at the Islamist rebel-held stronghold of Gao, the French Defence Ministry said Saturday.

French and Malian forces have advanced rapidly against Islamist militant fighters holding the Saharan north of the West African state after France intervened earlier this month at the request of the Malian government.

Meanwhile, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Saturday the U.S. would conduct aerial refueling missions in support of France's operations there. The U.S. has already transported French troops and gear to Mali.

On Friday, al-Qaida-allied fighters were forced to pull back under relentless French air strikes and the town of Hombori, about 100miles southwest of Gao, was recaptured.

French and Malian troops have been pushing forward on either side of the Niger River, securing several farming towns recaptured over the last week.

Gao, with the other Saharan desert towns of Timbuktu and Kidal, has been occupied since last year by an Islamist alliance that includes AQIM, the north African franchise of al-Qaida.

Mali's national radio said Hombori's inhabitants turned out to cheer the government soldiers.

Western and African leaders say the U.N.-backed intervention in Mali is necessary to stop the country's north - a vast, lawless tract of desert and mountains that juts into the Sahara - from becoming a safe haven for radical Islamist jihadists seeking to launch international attacks.

A Malian officer and residents living in the area south of Gao reported Thursday that the militants had blown up a bridge at Tassiga, south of Ansongo, on the road following the Niger River down to Niger.

Two civilians were reported killed when their vehicle drove off the destroyed bridge, the same sources said. 

NBC News' Gil Aegerter contributed to this report.

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Eric Gaillard / Reuters

A woman waves to French soldiers Thursday as they head toward the recently liberated town of Diabaly. Some Malians are so grateful for the job the French have done routing Islamist insurgents, they say they hope the troops never leave.

DIABALY, Mali — Residents of Diabaly feared for their lives when French airstrikes pounded their small town in central Mali, shaking their homes and turning the pickup trucks of Islamist fighters into burning, twisted metal.

Despite that, they are grateful to France.

Children in bare feet and tattered T-shirts now play among the trucks' charred wreckage — a visible reminder that the town was the focus of the French-led war against al-Qaida-linked rebels bent on carving an Islamist state out of the Sahara.

"I've told the children not to play with the trucks, but I can't stop them," said Adama Nantume, a retired farmer whose home was blackened by the laser-guided airstrikes that landed yards from his door. "Everyone here is happy about what the French have done."

Diabaly, once a buzzing trading and agriculture hub, is now a forward headquarters for French troops piling into Mali since the Islamist rebels launched a dramatic offensive toward the capital in early January.

Nic Bothma / EPA

Manjou Cisse, 13, was wounded by shrapnel during fighting in Diabaly, which was recently liberated by French troops.

French airstrikes halted the Islamist advance and Paris has vowed to rid Mali's north of the militants for fear they will create a base for international attacks.

France has said its military will leave once the Islamists are defeated and Mali is returned to stability, with the aid of an African force.

But many Diabaly residents say they don't want them to go.

"I hope that the French stay for eternity. If they leave, I will leave," said Alou Gindou, a 46-year-old driver. "If it were not for the French, we would not be sitting here today."

Many residents waved and roadside boutiques flew the France's tricolor flag as a column of French armored personnel carriers, jeeps and supply trucks trundled north along the route from the capital Bamako to reinforce Diabaly on Thursday.

'Ground was shaking'
Nantume was sitting beneath his mango tree when the convoy of Islamist rebels first arrived and sped past him toward the center of town on the evening of Jan. 14, extending their reach south from their desert strongholds of Kidal, Gao and Timbuktu.

"Everybody panicked and people began to flee," he said. "I went into my room and crouched in a corner. Bullets were flying everywhere and hitting the house."

He said the airstrikes began not long afterward as night fell and lasted until the rebels melted away two days later.

"As the planes circled, the jihadists tried to hide their trucks and they hid some here next to my house. The ground was shaking, the air was filled will bullets, and there were explosions," he said, massaging his palms nervously. "The inside of the house was incredibly hot. I thought I would die."

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Analysis: Why France is taking on Mali extremists

Eric Feferberg / AFP - Getty Images

A Malian soldier holds a machine gun as he stands guard at the entrance of a strategic bridge over the Niger river on Jan. 22, 2013, near Markala, north of Bamako. Mali's army chief today said his French-backed forces could reclaim the northern towns of Gao and fabled Timbuktu from Islamists in a month, as the United States began airlifting French troops to Mali.

Chadian forces advanced towards the Malian border on Tuesday as an African troop deployment and a U.S. military airlift swelled international support for French operations against Islamist rebels occupying the north of Mali.

An armored column of Chadian troops, experienced in desert operations, moved north from the Niger capital Niamey on the road to Ouallam, some 60 miles from the Malian border, where Nigerien troops are already stationed.

France, which launched air strikes in Mali 11 days ago to halt a surprise Islamist offensive toward the capital Bamako, has urged a swift deployment of the planned U.N.-mandated African force to back up its 2,150 soldiers already there.

The number of French troops could be boosted to more than 3,000 in the coming days and weeks, a source with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.

The aim of the intervention is to prevent northern Mali from becoming a launchpad for international attacks by al-Qaida and its local allies in North and West Africa. Fears of this increased sharply after a hostage-taking raid by Islamist militants last week on a gas plant in Algeria.

An entry into Mali from Niger by part of the African force would widen the front of operations against the Islamist alliance in the north that groups al-Qaida's North African wing AQIM and the Malian militant groups Ansar Dine and MUJWA.

On Monday, French and Malian armored columns moved into the towns of Diabaly and Douentza in central Mali after the rebels who had seized them fled into the bush to avoid air strikes. Diabaly is only 220 miles north of Bamako, while Douentza is 500 miles away from the riverside capital.

Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, who visited the troops at Ouallam, condemned the Islamist alliance, and an imam, or Muslim cleric, said prayers for the troops.

"We are going to war. A war imposed on us by traffickers of all kinds, an unjust war, from which the peaceful citizens of northern Mali are suffering terribly," Issoufou told the forces.

"I am confident in your burning desire for victory."

France says its troops will remain in Mali until they have completely dislodged the Islamist fighters from the north and fair elections can be held in its former colony.

In support of France, the United States has started transporting French soldiers and equipment to Mali from the Istres air base in southern France. Washington on Tuesday completed the fifth of an estimated 30 flights in an airlift expected to run for about a week.

A Reuters correspondent in Bamako saw a U.S. military cargo plane land at the international airport and offload about 40 French soldiers, jeeps, and other equipment.

Britain, Belgium, Canada and Denmark were already transporting French materiel to Mali. Benson said the United States was also working with France on intelligence issues, but declined to say if surveillance drones were being used.
 
'Everyone will fight'
France has also sent jet fighters and attack helicopters that have blasted rebel bases for more than a week, as it awaits troops from nearby African nations to deploy to the front line.

Some 1,000 African troops from the West African regional bloc ECOWAS and the central African nation of Chad have arrived, and that number is expected to top 5,000 in the coming weeks.

Military experts say the swift and effective deployment of African forces is crucial to sustain the momentum of France's air campaign and prevent Islamists from melting away into the empty desert or the rugged mountains near the Algerian border.

Niger's armed forces, which completed their training a month ago, are expected to advance toward the rebel-held north Malian city of Gao in collaboration with the Chadian troops. It was not clear when exactly they would cross the border.

Gao, the largest city of Mali's north, has been hit by French air strikes in recent days.

Niger has already sent a technical team to Mali, part of a battalion of 544 troops accompanied by French liaison officers.

Nigeria, a big oil producer, also plans to deploy some 1,200 troops in Mali and its president, Goodluck Jonathan, said they would stay there until the crisis was resolved.

Col. Oumar Kande, ECOWAS military and security adviser in Mali, told Reuters in Bamako the original plan for the U.N.-backed ECOWAS military intervention in the north was being changed to adapt to fast-evolving circumstances.

Instead of the Malian army alone playing the combat role, with ECOWAS supporting, now "everyone will fight", Kande said.

"We need to adjust to the reality on the ground."

Kande said ECOWAS was concerned about its troops having to fight a difficult counter-insurgency war in a northern Mali desert and mountain battleground the size of Texas against Islamist fighters likely to shun a head-on conventional fight.

"Given the force of the reaction from the international community, they (the rebels) are likely to adjust and begin an asymmetrical war, ambushes, strikes by small cells," he said.

"It is possible we will win back Timbuktu, Gao, and Kidal in a month, but it is impossible to say how long the overall war will last."

The rebels have imposed severe Shariah law in areas they control, carrying out amputations and at least one fatal stoning, and wrecking ancient shrines sacred to moderate Sufi Muslims.

$450 million sought for African troops
International donors will be asked to finance training and support for the Malian, ECOWAS and other African troops involved in the deployment of the U.N.-backed African force AFISMA against the Islamist alliance.

Donors are to meet at a conference in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa on Jan. 29, and France said they would be asked to provide about $452 million (about 340 million euros).

"We estimate that the Malian forces needs will be around 120 million euros and about 220 million euros for AFISMA for a full year," French Foreign Ministry spokesman Philippe Lalliot said.

Since the French started their operations earlier in January to block the jihadist thrust out of northern Mali, several thousand civilians have fled the recent fighting to neighboring states, the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said. In Mauritania, 4,208 Malian refugees have arrived since Jan. 11, it said.

Niger had seen 1,300 new refugees, mainly from Menaka and Anderamboukane, while during the same period, Burkina Faso had received 1,829 new refugees, mainly Tuaregs and Songhai from the regions of Gossi, Timbuktu, Gao and Bambara Maoude.

This was on top of almost 400,000 Malians displaced since April, when an offensive by Tuareg rebels allied with Islamist fighters seized Mali's largely desolate north following a military coup in Bamako in March.

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A worker makes the last preparations Monday before the opening of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Ban Ki-moon, other world leaders and business people will meet.

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says his top hopes for 2013 are to reach a new agreement on climate change and to urgently end the increasingly deadly and divisive war in Syria.

The U.N. chief told The Associated Press that he's also hoping for progress in getting the global economy humming again, restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, promoting political solutions in Mali, Congo and the Central African Republic, and providing energy, food and water to all people.

Ban laid out this ambitious wish list in an interview before heading to the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, saying he plans to take "the uncommon opportunity" of being with some 2,500 government, business and civil society leaders in the Swiss ski resort to exchange frank views on these issues.

"The world is now experiencing unprecedented challenges," Ban said.

"Climate change is fast happening — much, much faster than one would have expected," he said. "Climate and ecosystems are under growing strain."

Ban spoke before President Barack Obama, in his inaugural address Monday, put a similar emphasis on tackling climate change in his second term.

'Mobilize the political will'
Two-decade-old U.N. climate talks have so-far failed in their goal of reducing the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions that a vast majority of scientists says are warming the planet.

In December, a U.N. climate conference in Doha, Qatar, agreed to extend the Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that limits the greenhouse gas output of some rich countries, and affirmed a previous decision to adopt a new global climate pact by 2015.

"I will do my best to mobilize the political will and resources so that the member states can agree to a new legally binding global agreement on climate change," Ban said.

Ban urged progress in getting nations and people to use the world's limited resources without waste and in ways to ensure their replacement, so that all people will have enough to eat and drink and there will be electricity for their homes — and have energy to spare to promote economic growth.

"We have to have sustainable development," he said. "That's our number one priority together with climate change."

Momentum for fighting climate change has stalled amid recessions, financial meltdown and government debt crises of the past five years.

"At the same time, we need to see some economic dynamism," Ban said. "The world is still suffering, struggling to overcome its economic crisis."

The forum at Davos, opening Wednesday, focuses this year on how to ensure a more sturdy economic recovery that can withstand the kind of shocks the past few years have wrought.

Among the world leaders he may rub elbows with at Davos are Microsoft founder Bill Gates, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

The secretary-general expressed hope that the major powers will be able to revitalize growth, which will help developing countries meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to combat poverty by the target date of 2015.

The goals include cutting extreme poverty by half, ensuring a primary school education for every child, reducing maternal and infant mortality, and halting and reversing the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

On the political front, Ban said he is deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in Syria where the conflict will soon be entering its third year.

"I believe that world leaders must address this issue with a top priority and a sense of urgency. We cannot go on like this," he said. "More than 60,000 people have been killed, and if the situation continues like this way, we will have to see more and more death, more and more people who are fleeing Syria."

The secretary-general said he is also mobilizing U.N. envoys and others to try to make progress on the Mideast peace process; in Mali, where a French-led military operation is fighting Islamist extremists; the deteriorating political situation in Congo where M23 rebels have gained ground; and in the Central African Republic where rebels recently signed a peace agreement with the president.

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The death toll in the bloody Algeria hostage siege is likely to rise, Algeria warned on Sunday as governments struggled to confirm reports 23 Western workers – including some Americans - had been killed.

A day after the desert crisis was ended by Algerian troops, 25 bodies were discovered inside the gas pumping facility that was stormed by Islamist militants on Wednesday, according to reports cited by Reuters and the Associated Press.

Confusion still surrounds the deadly incident, which has renewed global fears about the likelihood of terror attacks and the safety of Westerners around the world.

It has also left other governments, including Britain, with a frustrating wait for further information out of the west African country.

Algeria’s government said Saturday that 23 hostages and 32 militants were killed during ‘rescue’ assaults launched by its own forces, with 107 foreign hostages and 685 Algerian hostages freed.

However, Minister of Communication Mohamed Said this would rise when final numbers were issued in the coming hours, Reuters reported.

"I am afraid unfortunately to say that the death toll will go up," Said was quoted as saying by the official APS news agency.

The U.S. government confirmed Friday that one of the dead hostages was Frederick Buttaccio from Texas.

The exact number of other Americans involved, and their fate, remains unclear.

President Barack Obama said on Saturday the United States was seeking from Algerian authorities a fuller understanding of what took place, but said "the blame for this tragedy rests with the terrorists who carried it out."

Britain on Sunday confirmed that three of its citizens and one British resident had been killed in the Algerian military operation.

Prime Minister David Cameron echoed Obama’s sentiments, saying responsibility for the deaths “lies squarely with the terrorists who launched the attack,” regardless of questions about the Algerian government's response.

The hostage-taking illustrated the global threat of terrorism which “requires a global response,” Cameron said Sunday.

One Briton had already was confirmed killed when the gunmen seized the hostages before dawn on Wednesday at the plant, run by Norway's Statoil along with Britain's BP and Algeria's state oil company.

The AP reported that "numerous" bodies were found at the pumping facility by Algerian de-mining squads searching for explosives, according to an Algerian government spokesman.

Statoil said five of its workers, all Norwegian nationals, were still missing. Japanese workers are also unaccounted for, Reuters said.

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Details emerge in militant takeover, rescue operation at Algeria gas field

One American was killed and two escaped unharmed from a natural gas complex in Algeria that was stormed by armed militants, U.S. officials said Friday. The fate of two others was unclear.

The officials said there was a total of five Americans at the In Amenas plant in eastern Algeria when the attackers seized dozens of hostages on Wednesday. The officials say two of the Americans managed to conceal themselves when the attack began and later escaped unharmed.

One U.S. citizen was found dead Friday by Algerian forces that had launched a raid on Thursday in an attempt to free the hostages, the officials said.

The deceased American was identified as Frederick Buttaccio, a U.S. official confirmed. Buttaccio's remains have been recovered from the plant and his family has been notified, the official said.

The official did not know the circumstances of Buttaccio's death.

Al-Qaida-linked militants claimed Friday that they were holding two American hostages and would exchange them for two people being held in the United States — the blind sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, convicted in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and Aafie Siddiqque a 40-year-old Pakistani neuroscientist and mother of three, who was convicted of attacking U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

That would appear to account for all five Americans thought to have been at the plant, one U.S. official said, if the militants are telling the truth.  

On Friday, the Algerian military had launched a second raid on the multinational cabal of kidnappers — led by a one-eyed al-Qaida associate — who laid siege to the In Amenas gas plant on Wednesday, state TV reported.

The situation was fluid, but the U.S. said one thing was carved in stone: It would not be cutting any deals with the captors.

"The United States does not negotiate with terrorists," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said of reports the militants were seeking the release of Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life term for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist convicted of trying to kill U.S. soldiers after being arrested in Afghanistan in 2008.

Nuland confirmed there were Americans still being held alive but did not say how many.

The official Algerian news service APS said a total of 132 foreign nationals were taken hostage, and 100 had been freed by midday Friday. It said more than 500 Algerians had also been rescued.

Citing a security source, APS said 12 hostages, including some Westerners, were killed when Algeria staged its first rescue raid on Thursday without consulting other countries in advance. Eighteen militants were killed, it reported.

McFaul family via Reuters

Belfast native Stephen McFaul (right) is pictured with his sons Dylan (left) and Jake in this family handout photo taken four years ago and made available Thursday.

NBC News could not confirm the figures. The French government confirmed one of its citizens had died, and its defense minister said in an interview on France 3 TV Saturday morning that he believed no more French nationals were being held at the plant.

One worker told Reuters that the hostage-takers were out for blood.

"The terrorists told us at the very start that they would not hurt Muslims but were only interested in the Christians and infidels," said the man, who gave his name as Abdelkader. "'We will kill them,' they said."

The brother of escapee Stephen McFaul said the hostages had their mouths taped and their necks draped with explosives. They were being trucked around the compound when the Algerian military hit the compound with explosives, he told Reuters.

"The truck my brother was in crashed and at that stage Stephen was able to make a break for his freedom," Brian McFaul said after speaking with his brother’s wife. "He presumed everyone else in the other trucks was killed."

A French catering employee who worked at the plant said he spent 40 hours hiding under a bed after the militants stormed in Wednesday with a spray of gunfire, only emerging when the soldiers arrived.

"I could see myself ending up in a wooden box," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 radio.

One rescued hostage told Algerian TV that the ordeal was an "exciting episode" and he was "impressed" with the army.

"I feel sorry for anybody who has been hurt, but other than that, I quite enjoyed it," the man said.

Algerian TV via Reuters TV

A British escapee, interviewed by Algerian TV, says the Algerian army did a "fantastic job" with Thursday's rescue.

Another said he was "very, very relieved to be out."

"Obviously, we still don't really know what is happening back on the site, so as much as we are glad to be out, our thoughts are with colleagues who are still there at the moment," he said on Algerian TV.

The militants' attack on the plant, operated in part by BP, was reportedly masterminded by Mokhtar bel Mokhtar, an Algerian with ties to al-Qaida who specializes in lucrative kidnappings and smuggling, according to U.S. officials. He earned the nickname Mr. Marlboro for trafficking cigarettes.

The raiding jihadists were described as a motley crew by an escaped radio operator who told Reuters: "Some were clean, others were dirty, some with beards, others without, and among them a French national with sunglasses."

The Mauritanian news agency ANI reported the group was retaliating over French military action against Islamic incursions in neighboring Mali. But the French operation began just a week ago and the assault on the plant appeared to be long-planned.

On Friday, another possible motive emerged, as ANI said the militants put forth the offer of the prisoner swap.

The offer was not verified by NBC News, but an ANI editor told The Associated Press the kidnappers’ spokesman began calling Thursday with "sounds of war in the background" and "threatened to kill all the hostages if the Algerian forces tried to liberate them."

British Prime Minister David Cameron told the House of Commons in London that Algeria maintains it green-lighted Thursday’s rescue raid because hostages’ lives were in danger when it appeared the militants were trying to spirit them out of the compound.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she spoke with the prime minister of Algeria on Friday and requested that the "utmost care" be taken to protect the hostages.

"This is an extremely dangerous situation," she said. "No one knows better than Algeria how ruthless these groups are."

Kari Huus, Catherine Chomiak and Courtney Kube of NBC News and The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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