Bombs strapped to Irish hostage

Irish engineer Stephen McFaul who escaped from the Algerian hostage crisis said he saw four jeeps full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops.

Father-of-two Stephen McFaul (36) from west Belfast, who had explosives tied around his neck, said he fled when the vehicle he had been travelling in crashed after coming under attack from Algerian forces. He was able to run off and has made it to safety.

Mr McFaul made contact with his wife Angela at around 3pm yesterday to say he was safe and well.

Algerian forces stormed a desert gas complex to free hundreds of hostages but 30, including several Westerners, were killed in the assault along with at least 11 of their Islamist captors, an Algerian security source told the Reuters news agency.

Western leaders whose compatriots were being held did little to disguise their irritation at being kept in the dark by Algeria before the raid - and over its bloody outcome. French, British and Japanese staff were among the dead, the source said.

And while a crisis has ended that posed a serious dilemma for Paris and its allies as French troops attacked the hostage-takers' al Qaeda allies in neighbouring Mali, it left question marks over the ability of Opec-member Algeria to protect vital energy resources and strained its relations with Western powers.

Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed, the source told Reuters. Eight dead hostages were Algerian. The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear. Some 600 local Algerian workers, less well guarded, survived.

Fourteen Japanese were among those still unaccounted for by the early hours of today, their Japanese employer said.

Japan's prime minister Shinzo Abe has cancelled part of his trip in Southeast Asia, his first overseas trip since taking office, and is considering flying home early due to the hostage crisis, Japan's top government spokesman said today.

"The action of Algerian forces was regrettable," said Japan's chief cabinet cecretary Yoshihide Suga, adding Tokyo had not been informed of the operation in advance.

Americans, Norwegians, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured by the militants who called themselves the "Battalion of Blood" and had demanded France end its week-old offensive in Mali.

Underlining the view of African and Western leaders that they face a multinational Islamist insurgency across the Sahara - a conflict that prompted France to send hundreds of troops to Mali last week - the official source said only two of the 11 dead militants were Algerian, including the squad's leader.

The bodies of three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman were found, the security source said. The group had claimed to have dozens of guerrillas on site and it was unclear whether any militants had managed to escape.