Governments slam botched rescue mission

Militants seized hundreds of workers from 10 nations at the remote Ain Amenas site on Wednesday and Algerian troops stormed the plant on Thursday.

But the abortive helicopter raid killed at least four and perhaps 35 hostages, with soldiers reportedly firing on jeeps loaded with hostages.

Six hundred Algerian workers have been released by the kidnappers and a handful of foreign workers have escaped.

But 60 foreigners are still unaccounted for.

The militants have offered to trade two US hostages for terror figures jailed in the US.

Algerian special forces resumed talks with the militants today and state news agency APS claimed that nearly 100 out of the 132 foreign hostages have been freed.

It didn't mention any casualties in clashes between Algerian forces and the militants, despite saying earlier that 18 kidnappers had been killed.

It was not clear whether the remaining foreigners were still captive or had been killed in the abortive rescue bid.

The kidnapped workers included US citizens, Britons, French, Norwegians, Romanians, Malaysians and Japanese.

Their countries expressed strong concerns about Algeria's actions and apparently reluctance to communicate.

The US sent an unarmed drone to the BP-operated site but could only watch. It also offered hostage rescue teams but the offer was refused.

Japanese PM Shinzo Abe slammed the "act of terrorism" but rang the Algerian leader to demand the hostages be protected and Japan summoned the Algerian ambassador for a dressing-down.

Eight Norwegians remain unaccounted for and the country's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said he would have liked to have known about the operation in advance.

But he stressed that "here in Norway, and in other affected countries, we don't have a full and complete picture of the situation."

APS said the four hostages killed on Thursday were Britons and Filipinos.

A Briton and an Algerian died on Wednesday in the militants' initial ambush on a bus taking foreign workers to an airport.