Canada's public broadcaster identified on Wednesday a third Canadian linked to a pair of former schoolmates implicated in an attack on a desert gas plant in Algeria in January.

Aaron Yoon, 24, reportedly flew to North Africa with the others, but wound up in jail before the attack that left at least 67 dead.

Algerian Foreign Minister Mourad Medelci met U.N. envoy Christopher Ross on Monday and spoke of the "hope of progress" on the decades-old Western Sahara conflict during his latest visit to the region.

"I would like to see in this new visit by Mr Ross the hope of progress that could be achieved between the two parties, namely Morocco and the Polisario," Medelci told national radio.

Algeria's foreign minister said Monday that any decisions taken by just one Syrian group will have a "very short life", after the opposition coalition was handed Syria's seat at the Arab League.

"It is up to the Syrians to decide, and any decisions coming from just one Syrian group -- more than that, any decision coming from a group of Syrians which is subject to external pressures -- risk having a very short life," said Mourad Medelci, speaking on national radio.

Algerian security forces have killed five Islamists this week in the restive region of Kabylie, including an "emir" and a jihadist recently sentenced to death in absentia, reports said on Thursday.

The special forces killed the five men on Monday evening and Tuesday in a raid on the village of Attouche, in the Makouda area, near the main Kabylie city of Tizi Ouzou, Liberty newspaper quoted security sources as saying.

Al-Qaida has named a replacement for Abdelhamid Abou Zeid, a key commander of its North African branch who was killed in fighting with French-led forces in northern Mali, Algerian TV reported on Sunday.

The appointment of Djamel Okacha, a 34-year-old Algerian also known as Yahia Aboul Hammam, still has to be approved by a meeting of the leadership of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the head of Algeria's Ennahar TV, Mohamed Mokkedem, told Agence France Presse.

At least two Canadian citizens were among the militants who attacked a desert gas plant in Algeria in January, federal police said Saturday.

Police had already confirmed that one Canadian was among the al-Qaida-linked fighters who stormed the In Amenas plant in eastern Algeria on January 16.

Covered from head to toe in white, their faces partly masked by embroidered triangular cloths, Algerian women marched through the capital Thursday to defend their traditional Islamic dress.

"We want to sweep away these clothes which come from Saudi Arabia, black, sad and stifling under the sun, to return to our traditional 'haik' which is the pride of Algerian women," said one, posing in front of the landmark central post office in Algiers.

A French jihadist arrested earlier this month in Mali returned to France on Tuesday and was immediately detained, judicial and informed sources said Tuesday.

The 37-year-old is among six men captured at the start of this month during fighting between French-led troops and Islamist rebels in the Ifoghas mountains in northern Mali.

President Michel Suleiman has stressed that Lebanon will continue to implement a U.N. resolution that halted the Israel-Hizbullah war in 2006 in an attempt to restore sovereignty on all its territories.

“With the support of the international community, Lebanon will continue to work to implement Security Council resolution 1701 in an effort to restore sovereignty on all its territories,” Suleiman said on Thursday during a dinner banquet thrown by the President of Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara, in his honor.

President Michel Suleiman said Wednesday that rival leaders should adopt an electoral vote law that is consistent with the Taef accord away from political confessionalism.

MPs should “find a law that is consistent with the Taef and does not take back (the country) to sectarian laws,” Suleiman told Lebanese expatriates in Senegal on the second day of his visit to the West African country before heading to the Ivory Coast on Thursday.