The French became involved in the shooting war with al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb in July when it deployed Special Forces troops with Mauritania's military in an attack on a jihadist camp in the Sahara Desert in a botched attempt to rescue a 78-year-old French hostage seized in April.

Six or seven militants were killed in the raid in Mali, which failed to locate the captive, aid worker Michel Germaneau.

AQIM fighters beheaded Germaneau two days later as a reprisal for French intervention in the desert insurgency that until then had been a purely regional affair.

Sarkozy declared war on AQIM, who warned he had "opened the gates of hell."

On Sept. 16, the jihadists struck back by kidnapping five French citizens and two Africans, all on whom worked for the French nuclear giant Areva and sub-contractors at one of the company's uranium mines in Niger.

The French are seeking to contact the kidnappers through local go-betweens, probably Tuareg tribesmen who have worked with the jihadists in the past.

Paris has also sent a military detachment to Niamey, Niger's capital, more troops to nearby Burkina Faso and at least two aircraft to hunt for the captives, who are believed to be held in neighboring Mali.

Mokhtar Belmokhtar, the AQIM commander in the region covering the Sahara and the semi-arid Sahel region to the south, is believed to have close links to senior figures in Mali's government and military.

He has even married into the local Tuareg clans to consolidate his alliances with the nomadic tribes who run smuggling operations across the region's porous borders.

The military intervention by the French, who maintain military bases in some of their former colonial empire across north and west Africa, has aggravated rivalries between the regional governments.

It has particularly annoyed the Algerians, who fought a brutal independence war against the French in 1954-62 and are fiercely opposed to Western military forces becoming involved in the Sahara conflict.

Algeria is the region's main military power and the driving force behind a new regional offensive against the jihadists, which has its headquarters at the Algerian air base of Tamanrasset, 600 miles south of Algiers deep in the Sahara.

On Sept. 26, the Algerians convened a special meeting with the military chiefs of Mali, Mauritania and Niger at Tamanrasset to set out a joint strategy for fighting AQIM, which is dominated by Algerian jihadists.

There have been any number of similar gatherings before but none has produced a sustainable common strategy.

Mauritania has taken a tough line against the jihadists, as evidenced by its willingness to allow French commandos to take part in the July raids. Niger has followed suit.

But Mali has taken a far more tolerant line with the jihadists, hence Belmokhtar's reputed links with senior figures in Nouakchott, the country's capital.

According to Africa Intelligence, a Paris Web site, Algeria's primary motive in convening the September meeting under its chief of staff, Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah, was to "send a clear message to Paris that he intended to retain control over his Sahara backyard."

Paris has secured Mauritania's cooperation and is conducting surveillance flights over the region. But, Africa Intelligence noted, "will Algeria allow such operations in its sphere of influence?

"Algeria remains upset over the Franco-Mauritanian offensive against AQIM in Mali in July and especially because the operation proved counter-productive for France, as the kidnapping of Areva's staff in Niger underscored."

Algiers is particularly annoyed at the Europeans' willingness to pay multimillion-dollar ransoms to the jihadists to secure the release of hostages, which provides funds for weapons to fight Algerian forces.

If the French, for all their war talk, end up buying the Areva captives' freedom, Algeria, and possibly other regional states, will be incensed.

That could reverberate heavily against Sarkozy's administration, which is seeking to reverse years of neglect by Paris of its former African colonies to ensure access to their mineral wealth, such as Niger's uranium, vital to France's growing nuclear industry.

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