A group identifying itself as an offshoot of al-Qaida in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM) said Saturday it was holding three Westerners kidnapped from a refugee camp in Algeria in October.

"This is the Jamat Tawhid Wal Jihad Fi Garbi Afriqqiya in west Africa. We claim the operation carried out on October 23 at Tindouf when two Spaniards and an Italian were kidnapped," said the audio and written message sent to Agence France Presse's correspondent in Bamako.

Algeria's national assembly on Tuesday voted to maintain a two-decade ban on the country's main religious party as lawmakers debated proposals for a new electoral law.

A month after Islamists swept to victory in neighboring Tunisia, the vote will ensure that the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) party, which came out on top Algeria's 1991 elections, will continue to be locked out of power.

Leaders of the world's biggest gas suppliers ended their first summit on Tuesday by reiterating the need for a fair gas price while Iran, whose president was absent, warned that Western taxation will derail the energy market.

The 12-member Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) expressed in a declaration they issued after the one-day summit "the need to reach a fair price for natural gas based on gas to oil ... prices indexation."

Suspected Islamist militants kidnapped two Spaniards and an Italian working at a refugee camp in western Algeria early Sunday, officials and security sources said.

A colleague of one of the Spanish hostages said over Spanish radio that "several gunshots were heard" and two people were wounded during the kidnapping from the Rabuni camp near Tindouf, mainly inhabited by Sahrawi refugees from Western Sahara who seek greater autonomy.

Algeria should cooperate with the new regime in Libya over members of the Gadhafi family who took refuge there, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told reporters Wednesday.

The fugitive leader's daughter Aisha fled to Algeria late in August with her brother Hannibal, their mother Safiya -- Gadhafi’s second wife -- and his eldest son Mohammed. Aisha has since given birth to a baby girl.

A court in the Algerian capital Algiers is expected to look into the case of an Algerian money laundering network that includes a Lebanese investor accused by U.S. intelligence of funding Hizbullah, reported Algeria’s al-Khabar newspaper.

It said that 31 suspects face “heavy” charges related to money laundering, including the Lebanese national.

An Algerian woman who had been evicted from her flat in Oran died after setting herself and her three-year-old son on fire, police said Saturday.

"She died at Oran university hospital" on Thursday, a policeman who spoke on condition of anonymity said, adding that the 35-year-old woman's son survived but had serious burns.

More than 150 Spanish police raided a suspected al-Qaida financing ring Tuesday, arresting five Algerian men and seizing computer material, the government said.

Police suspected the men sent money to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, which has its roots in Algeria and carries out attacks and kidnappings in north Africa, the interior ministry said in a statement.

A rocket-propelled grenade attack targeted the airport at Jijel, 350 kilometers east of Algiers at the weekend, but caused no casualties or damage, media reports said Monday.

Senior officials met at Jijel Sunday following the attack and agreed to step up security, a local source said.

The Tunisian army on Wednesday destroyed a convoy that included vehicles mounted with anti-aircraft guns in a remote southern region near the Algerian border, the defense ministry said.

"A helicopter destroyed seven out of the nine vehicles spotted by an aerial patrol on Wednesday at 05:00 GMT," ministry spokesman Haykel Bouzouita said.