4-year-old raped in school bus in Mumbai

MUMBAI: A 35-year-old school bus conductor has been arrested by police for allegedly sexually assaulting a four-year-old nursery student of a premier Juhu school on a moving school bus.

Vile Parle resident Ramesh Rajput committed the crime on the young girl on Tuesday afternoon when the bus was dropping children home. The victim was the last child left on the 16-seater vehicle. Police officers said that, in breach of a state government policy, no woman attendant was present on the bus at the time of the offence. The school, however, insisted that a female attendant was at hand and it was she who "confronted" conductor Rajput and "stopped" him.

Police arrested Rajput on Thursday and booked him for rape and molestation under the Indian Penal Code and invoked several sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012. He was produced before the Andheri magistrate court on Friday and remanded in police custody till February 1. Meanwhile, the bus driver was made a witness in the case based on his version that he was unaware of what was going on in the back.

"We have effected immediate arrest of the person concerned, registered a strong case for a non-bailable offence and will ensure that the culprit is punished severely. We will also terminate the contract with the bus owner," said a trustee of the girl's school.

The crime occurred around 1pm on Tuesday after the bus left the school with more than a dozen nursery students, including several girls. One by one, the other kids were dropped off. A resident of the western suburbs, the victim was sitting in the front row waiting for her turn, when Rajput threatened her to go with him to the backseat, officers said. He then sexually assaulted her. According to a statement released by the school, the girl was "first pushed and then touched inappropriately". As her residence neared, Rajput warned the child of dire consequences if she spoke about the incident to anyone.

Police officers said the child, in shock, did not reveal the crime to her parents on Tuesday. She did, however, make it known on Wednesday. According to the school, the child spoke to her father, who reported the offence in writing to the principal at 4pm on Wednesday.

"The principal initiated an immediate medical check-up of the child," said the school statement, and on Thursday the school "handed over the bus driver, lady attendant and the accused". The statement declared that the lady attendant was present in the bus "at all times as per the guidelines of the school" and she "immediately confronted" the conductor during the act of the crime and "stopped" him. "The lady attendant was a supportive witness", the statement claimed.

On this however, the police differed from the school. Officers said there was no female attendant on the bus at the time of the crime.

The bus was engaged by the school, it admitted, on a yearly contract and guidelines given to "the transport vendors with respect to lady attendants, cleaning norms, etc. This has to be followed religiously". Despite several attempts, the contractor was unavailable for comment.

As per the rules prescribed in the state government's School Bus Safety policy, a school bus ferrying female students has to compulsorily employ a lady attendant. She has to remain present in the bus from the start of the journey till the last student is dropped off. The policy also demands that the school and the bus contractor sign an agreement requiring background checks on bus personnel by the contractor. At the same time, the school is made responsible for ensuring proper training for bus drivers, cleaners, conductors and attendants.

The police on Friday said they are inquiring into the lapses that possibly led to the Tuesday offence. They are also probing if Rajput committed a crime on any other child in the past. He has been slapped with Indian Penal Code sections 376 (rape), 354 (criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman). "We also applied sections 3 (penetrative sexual assault), 7 (sexual assault) and 12 (sexual harassment of the child) of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, in the case," said additional police commissioner (west region) Vishwas Nangre-Patil.

Officers said the rape section was added taking into account a Supreme Court judgment that says that penetration is not necessary to establish the offence of rape. The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, was invoked for it victim-friendliness. It bars direct confrontation between the victim and the perpetrator during investigation and trial, gives children the comfort of having a friend or family member with them while deposing, and directs police personnel to go to the victim's home to take his or her statement and to do so in plainclothes.

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Flu season 'bad one for the elderly,' CDC says

Flu hospitalizations among the elderly rose sharply last week, prompting federal officials to take unusual steps to make more flu medicines available and to urge wider use of them as soon as symptoms appear.

The U.S. is about halfway through the flu season, which is shaping up to be worse than average and a bad one for the elderly, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

New figures from the CDC show the flu epidemic is continuing, with widespread activity in all states but Tennessee and Hawaii.

Nine more children or teens have died of the flu, bringing the nation's total this flu season to 29, health officials reported Friday. That's close to the 34 pediatric deaths reported during all of the last flu season, although that one was unusually light. In a typical season, about 100 children die of the flu and officials said there is no way to know whether deaths this season will be higher or lower than usual.

So far, half of confirmed flu cases are in people 65 and older. Lab-confirmed flu hospitalizations totaled 19 for every 100,000 in the population, but 82 per 100,000 among those 65 and older, "which is really quite a high rate," Frieden said.

"We expect to see both the number and the rates of both hospitalizations and deaths rise further in the next week or so as the flu epidemic progresses," so prompt treatment with antivirals is key to preventing deaths, he said.

Two drugs — Tamiflu and Relenza — can cut the severity and risk of death from the flu but must be started within 48 hours of first symptoms to do much good. To increase supplies of Tamiflu, said Dr. Margaret Hamburg, head of the Food and Drug Administration, said the agency had allowed Genentech to distribute additional doses that have old packaging information.

This year's season is earlier than normal and the dominant flu strain is one that tends to make people sicker.

Health officials say it's not too late to get a flu shot to help protect against the flu. Vaccinations are recommended for anyone 6 months or older.

Last week, the CDC said the flu again surpassed an "epidemic" threshold, based on monitoring of deaths from flu and a frequent complication, pneumonia. The flu epidemic happens every year and officials say this year's vaccine is a good match for strains that are going around.

The government doesn't keep a running tally of adult deaths from the flu, but estimates that it kills about 24,000 people most years.

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Online:

CDC flu: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm

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Algeria Terrorists Want to Trade US Hostages for Blind Sheikh

The al Qaeda-linked terrorists holding Americans and other Westerners hostage at a gas plant in Algeria have now demanded the release of two convicted terrorists held in U.S. prisons, including the "blind sheikh" who helped plan the first attack on New York's World Trade Center, in exchange for the freedom of two American hostages, according to an African news service.

The terror group calling itself the Masked Brigade, which raided the BP joint venture plant in In Amenas early Wednesday, reportedly contacted a Mauritanian news service with the offer. In addition to the release of Omar Abdel-Rahman, who planned the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, they demanded the release of Aifia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist who shot at two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in 2008.

Asked about the unconfirmed report of a proposed swap, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said firmly, "The United States does not negotiate with terrorists." She repeated the statement again when questioned further. She also said she was not prepared to get into any details about the status of Americans in "an ongoing hostage situation."

At least three Americans were being held hostage by the militants when the Algerian military mounted a rescue operation at the facility Thursday that reportedly resulted in casualties.

Five other Americans who were at the facility when it was attacked by the terrorists are now safe and believed to have left the country, according to U.S. officials.

Mike Nelson/AFP/Getty Images

Algeria Hostage Situation: Military Operation Mounted Watch Video

Reports that dozens of hostages were killed during the Algerian military's attempt to retake the compound have not been confirmed, though Algeria's information minister has confirmed that there were casualties. It's known by U.S. and foreign officials that multiple British, Japanese and Norwegian hostages were killed.

According to an unconfirmed report by an African news outlet, the militants said seven hostages survived the attack, including two Americans, one Briton, three Belgians and a Japanese national. U.S. officials monitoring the case had no information indicating any Americans have been injured or killed, but said the situation is fluid and casualties cannot be ruled out.

On Friday, a U.S. military plane evacuated between 10 and 20 people in need of medical attention, none of them American, from In Amenas and took them to an American medical facility in Europe. A second U.S. plane is preparing to evacuate additional passengers in need of medical attention.

British Prime Minister David Cameron told parliament today that the terror attack "appears to have been a large, well coordinated and heavily armed assault and it is probable that it had been pre-planned."

"The terrorist group is believed to have been operating under Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a criminal terrorist and smuggler who has been operating in Mali and in the region for a number of years," said Cameron.

Cameron said Algerian security forces are still in action at the facility. On Thursday, he said that the situation was "very bad … A number of British citizens have been taken hostage. Already, we know of one who has died. ... I think we should be prepared for the possibility for further bad news, very difficult news in this extremely difficult situation."

The kidnappers had earlier released a statement saying there are "more than 40 crusaders" held "including 7 Americans."

U.S. officials had previously confirmed to ABC News that there were at least three Americans held hostage at the natural gas facility jointly owned by BP, the Algerian national oil company and a Norwegian firm at In Amenas, Algeria.

"I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation," said Panetta. "I don't think there's any question that [this was] a terrorist act and that the terrorists have affiliation with al Qaeda."

He said the precise motivation of the kidnappers was unknown.

"They are terrorists, and they will do terrorist acts," he said.

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Foreigners still caught in Sahara hostage crisis

ALGIERS (Reuters) - More than 20 foreigners were still being held hostage or missing inside a gas plant on Friday after Algerian forces stormed the desert complex to free hundreds of captives taken by Islamist militants, who threatened to attack other energy installations.

Thirty hostages, including at least seven Westerners, were killed during Thursday's assault, along with at least 18 of their captors, said an Algerian security source.

The attack, which plunged capitals around the world into crisis mode, is a serious escalation of unrest in northwestern Africa, where French forces have been in Mali since last week fighting an Islamist takeover of Timbuktu and other towns.

"We are still dealing with a fluid and dangerous situation where a part of the terrorist threat has been eliminated in one part of the site, but there still remains a threat in another part," British Prime Minister David Cameron told his parliament.

A local Algerian source said 100 of 132 foreign hostages had been freed from the facility. The fate of the other 32 was unclear as the situation was changing rapidly.

Earlier he said 60 were still missing with some believed still held hostage, but it was unclear how many, and how many might be in hiding elsewhere in the sprawling compound.

Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among the seven foreigners confirmed dead in the army's storming, the Algerian security source told Reuters. One British citizen was killed when the gunmen seized the hostages on Wednesday.

Those still unaccounted for on Friday included 10 from Japan and eight Norwegians, according to their employers, and a number of Britons which Cameron put at "significantly" less than 30.

France said it had no information on two Frenchmen who may have been at the site and Washington has said a number of Americans were among the hostages, without giving details. The local source said a U.S. aircraft landed nearby on Friday.

Some countries have been reluctant to give details of the numbers of their missing nationals to avoid disclosing information that may be useful to their captors.

As Western leaders clamored for news, several expressed anger they had not been consulted by the Algerian government about its decision to storm the facility.

The sprawling facility housed hundreds of workers. Algeria's state news agency said the army had rescued 650 hostages in total, 573 of whom were Algerians.

"(The army) is still trying to achieve a ‘peaceful outcome' before neutralizing the terrorist group that is holed up in the (facility) and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," it said, quoting a security source.

MULTINATIONAL INSURGENCY

Algerian commanders said they moved in on Thursday about 30 hours after the siege began because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.

An Irish engineer who survived said he saw four jeeps full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops.

A French hostage employed by a French catering company said Algerian military forces had found some British hostages hiding and were combing the sprawling In Amenas site for others when he was escorted away by the military.

"I hid in my room for nearly 40 hours, under the bed. I put boards up pretty much all round," Alexandre Berceaux told Europe 1 raid. "I didn't know how long I was going to stay there ... I was afraid. I could see myself already ending up in a pine box."

"When Algerian solders ... came for me, I didn't even know it was over. They were with some of my colleagues, otherwise I'd never have opened the door."

Western governments are trying to determine the degree to which the hostage taking was part of an international conspiracy and was linked, as the captors claimed, to the week-old French military intervention in neighboring Mali.

The Algerian security source said only two of 11 militants whose bodies were found on Thursday were Algerian, including the squad's leader. The others comprised three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman, he said.

Algeria state news agency APS said the group had planned to take the hostages to Mali.

The plant was heavily fortified, with security, controlled access and an army camp with hundreds of armed personnel between the accommodation and processing plant, Andy Coward Honeywell, who worked there in 2009, told the BBC.

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said those responsible would be hunted down: "Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere," he said in London. "Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide."

MALI WOES

The crisis posed a serious dilemma for former colonial power Paris and its allies as French troops attacked the hostage-takers' al Qaeda allies in Mali, another former colony.

The desert fighters have proved to be better trained and equipped than France had anticipated, diplomats told Reuters at the United Nations, which said 400,000 people could flee Mali to neighboring countries in the coming months.

In Algeria, the kidnappers warned locals to stay away from foreign companies' oil and gas installations, threatening more attacks, Mauritania's news agency ANI said, citing a spokesman for the group.

Algerian workers form the backbone of an oil and gas industry that has attracted international firms in recent years partly because of military-style security. The kidnapping, storming and further threat cast a deep shadow over its future.

Hundreds of workers from international oil companies were evacuated from Algeria on Thursday and many more will follow, BP, which jointly ran the gas plant with Norway's Statoil and the Algerian state oil firm, said on Friday.

The overall commander of the kidnappers, Algerian officials said, was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria's bloody civil war of the 1990s and one of a host of Saharan Islamists, flush with arms and fighters from the 2011 civil war in Libya. He appears not to have been present.

Algerian security specialist Anis Rahmani, author of several books on terrorism and editor of Ennahar daily, told Reuters about 70 militants were involved from two groups, Belmokhtar's "Those who sign in blood", who travelled from Libya, and the lesser known "Movement of the Islamic Youth in the South".

"They were carrying heavy weapons including rifles used by the Libyan army during (Muammar) Gadaffi's rule," he said. "They also had rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns."

Algeria's government is implacably at odds with Islamist guerrillas who remain at large in the south, years after the civil war through the 1990s in which some 200,000 people died.

Britain's Cameron, who warned people to prepare for bad news and who cancelled a major policy speech on Friday to deal with the situation, said he would have liked Algeria to have consulted before the raid. Japan made similar complaints.

U.S. officials had no clear information on the fate of Americans, though a U.S. military drone had flown over the area. Washington, like its European allies, has endorsed France's move to protect the Malian capital by mounting air strikes last week and now sending 1,400 ground troops to attack Islamist rebels.

The apparent ease with which the fighters swooped in from the dunes to take control of an important energy facility, which produces some 10 percent of the natural gas on which Algeria depends for its export income, has raised questions over the value of outwardly tough security measures.

(Additional reporting by Ali Abdelatti in Cairo, Eamonn Mallie in Belfast, Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, Mohammed Abbas in London and Padraic Halpin and Conor Humprhies in Dublin; Writing by Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Peter Graff)

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Toyota settles 'bellwether' US wrongful death suit

WASHINGTON: Japanese automaker Toyota has settled a wrongful death lawsuit in the United States over sudden, unintended acceleration that allegedly killed two people in Utah in 2010.

"We are satisfied that both parties reached a mutually acceptable agreement to settle this case," Toyota Motor Corp said in a statement late Thursday.

A Toyota spokeswoman, Celeste Migliore, told AFP it was the first "bellwether" settlement among hundreds of cases pending in a federal court in California.

Toyota did not reveal financial details of the settlement, but said in a statement it "will have a number of other opportunities to defend our product at trial... and other legal venues."

"We would emphasize that at no time has anyone put forth any reliable scientific evidence of an alleged electronic defect in our vehicles that could cause unintended acceleration," it said.

The settled case involved a man and woman in the US state of Utah killed when the Toyota Camry they were traveling in slammed into a wall.

Critics have argued that Toyota's accelerator technology was behind several deadly accidents.

But Japan's biggest automaker said its accelerator technology was confirmed as safe.

"We sympathize with anyone in an accident involving one of our vehicles; however, we continue to stand fully behind the safety and integrity of Toyota's Electronic Throttle Control System, which multiple independent evaluations have confirmed as safe," the statement said.

The acceleration problem prompted a recall of millions of Toyota vehicles in 2009-2010, severely damaging the carmaker's once-sterling reputation.

Toyota has argued at least in some cases that the problems involved floor mats that came loose and trapped the accelerator pedal.

Last year, Toyota added two models to 2009-2010 recalls citing the floor mat problem.

Toyota's mishandling of its vehicle problems led to a US congressional probe, more than $50 million in fines from US regulators and public apologies by its chief.

In December, the automaker announced an agreement to pay about $1.1 billion to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by US vehicle owners who said the value of their cars had fallen due to the recalls.

It also agreed to pay a record $17.35 million fine for failing to promptly notify US authorities that floor mats could also be trapped under the accelerators of 2010 Lexus models.

In November Toyota agreed to pay $25.5 million to settle claims from shareholders who lost money after its stock price plummeted in the wake of the recalls.

- AFP/de

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Cabinet nod for President’s rule in Jharkhand

NEW DELHI: The government on Thursday recommended President's rule in Jharkhand with the Union Cabinet approving the proposal of governor Syed Ahmed to this effect while keeping the assembly in suspended animation.

The governor's recommendation was made in his second report to the Centre on the political situation in the state in the wake of chief minister Arjun Munda's resignation. Munda had, however, sought dissolution of the assembly after ally Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) withdrew support to his government.

Former Union home secretary Madhukar Gupta and former CRPF director-general K Vijay Kumar are likely to be appointed advisors to the Jharkhand governor, said a source.

Jharkhand, which was created in 2000, has been placed under President's rule twice earlier. Munda's government was reduced to a minority on January 8 when JMM, in a letter to the governor, formally withdrew its support to the 28-month-old government.

In the 82-member assembly, BJP and JMM have 18 members each. The Munda government had the support of six members of All Jharkhand Students' Union, two of JD(U), two independents and one nominated member who has voting right in a trial of strength.

Opposition Congress has 13 members, Jharkhand Vikas Morcha(P) 11 and RJD five in the assembly. CPI-ML(L), Marxist Coordination Party, Jharkhand Party (Ekka), Jharkhand Janadhikar Manch and Jai Bharat Samta Party have one member each besides an independent.

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Study: NYC better than LA at cutting kids' obesity

NEW YORK (AP) — A new study shows New York City is doing better than Los Angeles in the battle against childhood obesity, at least for low-income children.

From 2003 to 2011, obesity rates for poor children dropped in New York to around 16 percent. But they rose in Los Angeles and ended at about 20 percent.

The researchers focused on children ages 3 and 4 enrolled in a government program that provides food and other services to women and their young children.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the study Thursday.

The authors noted that the Los Angeles program has many more Mexican-American kids. Obesity is more common in Mexican-American boys than in white or black kids.

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Football Star Manti Te'o Faces Tough Questions

Notre Dame's star linebackerManti Te'o faces a problem bigger than any running back he's had to bring down.

As the elaborate hoax about his dead "girlfriend" unravels, many questions remain to be answered, chief among them whether he was complicit in promoting the dramatic story of his girlfriend's death from leukemia. Te'o may soon be forced to tackle those questions himself.

"A lot of people are very suspicious when Te'o says he had no idea and he was just a sucker in this," Deadspin writer Timothy Burke said on "Good Morning America" today. "Why would somebody go to such great lengths to hoax him like that?"

Click here for 'Catfish' stars' advice on online dating.

Burke's Deadspin story broke the scandal, forcing Te'o and Notre Dame to admit the girlfriend, Lennay Kekua, never existed. Notre Dame claims that Te'o is the victim of a "cruel hoax."

"[Notre Dame is] sticking to his story and they're going to, I think, fight and make every sort of attempt they can to prove he had no idea this was going on and that he was the unfortunate victim of a year-long prank," Burke said.

But it won't be easy.

"I think that there are some questions about when he became aware of it, simply because Notre Dame and Te'o's statement have indicated that he found out about it in late December, but he chose not to correct or identify when he was asked before the BCS Championship game about his girlfriend," he said. The championship game was played on Jan. 7.

Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images

Tale of Notre Dame Football Star's Girlfriend and Her Death an Alleged Hoax Watch Video

Notre Dame's Athletic Director Discusses Manti Te'o Girlfriend Hoax Watch Video

MTV's 'Catfish' Series Pulls Back Curtain on Online Profiles Watch Video

Burke said he is particularly eager for answers about the story Te'o told of meeting his girlfriend in 2009 and his father Brian Te'o's statements about how the purported girlfriend used to visit Manti in Hawaii.

What is clear is that Te'o tweeted Kekua twice after she was reported to have died on Sept. 11 or 12, 2012.

On Sept. 12, the day after his grandmother's death, Te'o tweeted to his purportedly deceased girlfriend, "You will always be with me wherever I go! Tell dad, BJ, papa Ima, papa Santiago, and grandma that I said hello! I love you! #574L."

Nearly two months later, on Nov. 6, he tweeted her again saying, "I miss you!"

Those tweets may be an indication of his sincerity or, to skeptics, elaborately planted fake evidence of his heartbreak.

The university's athletic director Jack Swarbrick said at a Wednesday night news conference that the school was not speaking for Te'o.

"At the end of the day, this is Manti's story to tell and we believe he should have the right to tell it, which he is going to do," Swarbrick said.

Swarbrick said that Te'o and his family came to the university last month with concerns that Te'o had been the victim of a hoax.

"The university immediately initiated an investigation to assist Manti and his family in discovering the motive for and nature of this hoax," he said. "While the proper authorities will continue to investigate this troubling matter, this appears to be, at a minimum, a sad and very cruel deception to entertain its perpetrators."

The school's investigators monitored online chatter by the alleged perpetrators, Swarbrick said, adding that he was shocked by the "casual cruelty" it revealed.

"They enjoyed the joke," Swarbrick said, comparing the ruse to the popular film "Catfish," in which filmmakers revealed a person at the other end of an online relationship was not who she said she was.

"While we still don't know all of the dimensions of this ... there are certain things that I feel confident we do know," Swarbrick said. "The first is that this was a very elaborate, very sophisticated hoax, perpetrated for reasons we don't understand."

Click here for more scandalous public confessions.

Swarbrick also said that he believed Te'o's representatives were planning to disclose the truth next week until Wednesday's story broke.

Te'o, who led the Fighting Irish to the BCS championship game this year and finished second for the Heisman Trophy, has only issued a written statement so far.

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Sahara hostage siege turns Mali war global

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Twenty-five foreign hostages escaped and six were killed on Thursday when Algerian forces launched an operation to free them at a remote desert gas plant, Algerian sources said, as one of the biggest international hostage crises in decades unfolded.

Fast-moving details of the military operation to free the hostages were difficult to confirm. Algeria's official APS news agency said that the military had freed four foreign hostages, giving no further information.

A local source told Reuters six foreign hostages were killed along with eight captors when the Algerian military fired on a vehicle being used by the gunmen. An Algerian security source said the 25 foreign hostages had escaped.

Mauritania's ANI news agency, which has been in constant contact with the kidnappers, said seven hostages were still being held: two Americans, three Belgians, one Japanese and one British citizen.

The standoff began when gunmen calling themselves the Battalion of Blood stormed the gas plant on Wednesday morning. They said they were holding 41 foreigners and demanded a halt to a French military operation against fellow al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants in neighboring Mali.

ANI and Qatar-based Al Jazeera reported that 34 of the captives and 15 of their captors had been killed when government forces fired from helicopters at a vehicle. Those death tolls, far higher than confirmed by the local source, would contradict the reports that large numbers of foreigners escaped alive.

Britain and Norway, whose oil firms BP and Statoil run the plant jointly with the Algerian state oil company, said they had been informed by the Algerian authorities that a military operation was under way but did not provide details.

As many as 180 Algerian hostages had also been held but managed to flee, the local source said.

The incident dramatically raises the stakes in the French military campaign in neighboring Mali, where hundreds of French paratroopers and marines are launching a ground offensive against rebels after air strikes began last week.

Algerian Interior Minister Daho Ould Kablia said the kidnappers were led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran Islamist guerrilla who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and had set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local al Qaeda leaders.

A holy warrior-cum-smuggler dubbed "The Uncatchable" by French intelligence and "Mister Marlboro" by some locals for his illicit cigarette-running business, Belmokhtar's links to those who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.

The hostage takers earlier allowed some prisoners to speak to the media, apparently to put pressure on Algerian forces not to storm the compound. An unidentified hostage who spoke to France 24 television said prisoners were forced to wear explosive belts and captors had threatened to blow up the plant.

Two hostages, identified as British and Irish, spoke to Al Jazeera television and called on the Algerian army to withdraw from the area to avoid casualties.

"We are receiving care and good treatment from the kidnappers. The (Algerian) army did not withdraw and they are firing at the camp," the British man said. "There are around 150 Algerian hostages. We say to everybody that negotiations is a sign of strength and will spare many any loss of life."

NUMBERS UNCONFIRMED

The precise number and nationalities of foreign hostages could not be confirmed, with some countries reluctant to release information that could be useful to the captors.

Britain said one of its citizens was killed in the initial storming on Wednesday and "a number" of others were held.

The militants said seven Americans were among their hostages, a figure U.S. officials said they could not confirm.

Norwegian oil company Statoil said nine of its Norwegian staff and three Algerian employees were captive. Britain's BP, which operates the plant with Statoil and Algerian state oil company Sonatrach, said some of its staff were held but would not say how many or their nationalities.

Japanese media said five workers from Japanese engineering firm JGC Corp. were held, a number the company did not confirm. Paris has not said whether any hostages were French. Vienna said one hostage was Austrian, Dublin said one was Irish and Bucharest said an unspecified number were Romanian.

Spanish oil company Cepsa said it had begun to evacuate personnel from elsewhere in Algeria.

Paris said the Algeria attack demonstrated it was right to intervene in Mali: "We have the flagrant proof that this problem goes beyond just the north of Mali," French ambassador to Mali Christian Rouyer told France Inter radio.

President Francois Hollande has received public backing from Western and African allies who fear that al Qaeda, flush with men and arms from the defeated forces of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, is building a desert haven in Mali, a poor country helpless to combat fighters who seized its north last year.

However, there is also some concern in Washington and other capitals that the French action in Mali could provoke a backlash worse than the initial threat by militants in the remote Sahara.

The militants, communicating through established contacts with media in neighboring Mauritania, said they had dozens of men armed with mortars and anti-aircraft missiles in the compound and had rigged it with explosives.

"We hold the Algerian government and the French government and the countries of the hostages fully responsible if our demands are not met, and it is up to them to stop the brutal aggression against our people in Mali," read one statement carried by Mauritanian media.

They condemned Algeria's secularist government for letting French warplanes fly over its territory to Mali and shutting its border to Malian refugees.

PRESSING ON

The attack in Algeria did not stop France from pressing on with its campaign in Mali. It said on Thursday it now had 1,400 troops on the ground in Mali, and combat was underway against the rebels that it first began targeting from the air last week.

"There was combat yesterday, on the ground and in the air. It happened overnight and is under way now," said Le Drian. Residents said a column of about 30 French Sagaie armored vehicles set off on Wednesday toward rebel positions from the town of Niono, 300 km (190 miles) from the capital, Bamako.

The French action last week came as a surprise but received widespread international support in public. Neighboring African countries planning to provide ground troops for a U.N. force by September have said they will move faster to deploy them.

Nigeria, the strongest regional power, sent 162 soldiers on Thursday, the first of an anticipated 906.

"The whole world clearly needs to unite and do much more than is presently being done to contain terrorism, with its very negative impact on global peace and security," President Goodluck Jonathan said.

Germany, Britain and the Netherlands have offered transport aircraft to help ferry in African troops. Washington has said it is considering what support it can offer.

Many inhabitants of northern Mali have welcomed the French action, though some also fear being caught in the cross-fire. The Mali rebels who seized Timbuktu and other oasis towns in northern Mali last year imposed Islamic law, including public amputations and beheadings that angered many locals.

A day after launching the campaign in Mali, Hollande also ordered a failed rescue in Somalia on Saturday to free a French hostage held by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militants since 2009. Al Shabaab said on Thursday it had executed hostage Denis Allex. France said it believed he died in the rescue.

(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Giles Elgood)

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More than 100 killed in new Syria 'massacre': watchdog

DAMASCUS: More than 100 civilians have been killed in a new "massacre" in Syria, a watchdog said Thursday, as Russia slammed the United States for blaming deadly blasts at a university campus on the Damascus regime.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths came when the army on Tuesday swept through farmlands north of Homs city, where it said around 1,000 people had sought refuge from fighting in the central Syria metropolis.

"The Syrian regime carried out a new massacre on Tuesday claiming 106 victims, including women and children," said the Britain-based watchdog, which relies on a network of activists and medics on the ground.

Witnesses said several members of the same family were among those killed, some in fires that raged through their homes and others stabbed or hacked to death. Among the dead were 32 members of the same clan.

Homs, dubbed "the capital of the revolution" by Syria's opposition, is the most strategic city in the country's largest province, lying on key trade routes near the borders with Lebanon and Iraq, and with its southwestern areas not far from Damascus.

Pro-regime daily Al-Watan reported army advances against "gunmen" -- a term used by the regime for insurgents -- in the area, but activists said there were no insurgents there.

"They came in and slaughtered the women and the children. They burned their bodies," an unidentified woman told an anti-regime activist, according to amateur video distributed by Homs-based opponents of the regime.

The Observatory urged the UN to send a fact-finding team to probe the latest bloodshed.

The reported deaths were the latest to emerge from Syria, where twin blasts on Tuesday tore through an Aleppo campus while students were sitting exams.

At least 87 people were killed in one of the bloodiest attacks of the 22-month conflict, in a city that has suffered some US$2.5 billion in damage in six months of bitter conflict, according to Aleppo's governor.

No one claimed responsibility for the Aleppo blasts, but the United States blamed government forces for the violence, suggesting they were caused by air strikes on university buildings.

The remarks by US State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland triggered an angry Russian response.

"I cannot imagine anything more blasphemous," said Moscow's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday, describing the killings as a "terrorist act."

Violence erupted again in Syria on Thursday, with the Observatory reporting several air strikes on flashpoints in Damascus province and Kafr Nabuda in the central province of Hama.

In the Husseiniyeh area near the capital, warplanes dropped three missiles killing 11 civilians, among them seven children, said the Observatory.

An air strike on Kafr Nabuda killed another four children, the monitoring group said, adding that more than 3,500 children have been killed in Syria's conflict.

The Observatory gave a preliminary death toll for Thursday of 118 killed -- among them 61 civilians.

Meanwhile, in the majority Kurdish town of Ras al-Ain, in the northern province of Hasakeh, unprecedentedly fierce fighting pitted rebels against pro-regime Kurdish fighters, the Observatory said.

Unlike in previous clashes in Ras al-Ain, jihadists did not join the fight alongside the rebels on Thursday.

But a senior Jordanian salafist said two prominent jihadists were killed in fighting regime troops alongside Al-Nusra Front fighters in Syria, among them a brother-in-law of slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

More than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria's conflict, according to the United Nations, while the Observatory says it has documented more than 48,000 dead.

The conflict has sent some 600,000 people fleeing the country, most of them to neighbouring countries, according to the UN.

An official in Iraq said it will reopen two border points to Jordan and Syria more than a week after they were closed after protests against Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Anbar blocked the main route linking Baghdad to the two countries.

- AFP/jc

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