Three members of al Qaeda are reported by media to have delivered a message this month from Osama bin Laden to a leading Algerian Islamic rebel believed to be in Niger.
The three emissaries, all Saudi nationals, travelled through Syria and Egypt and met Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a regional leader of Algeria's Islamic rebel Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.
The group, known by its French acronym GSPC, is on the U.S. black list of "foreign terrorist organisations". Algerian military officials say it has between 350 and 380 men and operates mainly in the east of the country.
The daily newspaper L'Expression, quoting reliable sources, did not say what the content of Bin Laden's reported message was.
The newspaper said earlier this month that the Algerian army was tracking a presumed al Qaeda member, a Yemeni, who came to the country to meet GSPC chief Hassan Hattab and enlist Algerian Islamic rebels in attacks abroad.
The reports followed the killing by the Algerian army in September of the top al Qaeda official in North Africa and the Sahel, 37-year-old Yemeni Emad Abdelwahid Ahmed Alwan.