Bangkok Post

''Thirty-seven foreigners of eight different nationalities,'' were killed during the four-day siege, Sellal told a news conference in Algiers, adding that an Algerian was also killed, giving an overall toll of 38.

He said several hostages were executed 'with bullet to head' and five foreigners were still missing after the gas plant siege.

He also said that the 32 militants who overran the In Amenas gas complex, taking hundreds of workers hostage, came from northern Mali. Twenty-nine of them were killed and three arrested.

Japan's prime minister, meanwhile, said seven Japanese deaths had been confirmed in the Algerian hostage crisis, the first official confirmation from Tokyo that any of its nationals had died.

''I was informed by vice foreign minister (Minoru) Kiuchi that as a result of identifications of bodies at a hospital in In Amenas, seven were confirmed to be Japanese employees of JGC,'' Shinzo Abe told his ministers.

The Japanese firm had earlier said it did not know the fate of 17 of its employees, ten of whom were Japanese.

The prime minister said so far it had not been possible to confirm what had happened to the other three Japanese nationals who remain unaccounted for.