ALGIERS
Algerian Interior Ministry has said security forces killed 32 militants in a rescue operation Saturday while 23 hostages -- most of them westerners -- also died as the five-day bloody hostage standoff at a Sahara gas plant came to an end.
The ministry said the death toll was provisional, adding that a total of 685 Algerian workers and 107 foreigners had been rescued.
A group called "Al-Muvakkiun Bid-dem Brigade" (or Those Who Signed in Blood), an offshoot of the Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), claimed responsibility for the attack Wednesday on the natural gas plant in Ain Amenas.
The group said the attack was in retaliation to the ongoing French military intervention in Mali to root out rebel groups in country's north.
