An Islamic group headed by influential cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi on Thursday criticized France's "haste" in launching an offensive against Islamists in Mali, warning of "dangerous consequences."

"Military intervention has dangerous consequences, whether in killing, destruction, displacement... and famine, which Mali is already suffering from," the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars said in a statement.

An Algerian air strike killed 34 hostages, some of them Westerners, and 15 of their Islamist kidnappers at a desert gas field on Thursday, the ANI news agency quoted a spokesman for the kidnappers as saying.

"Thirty-four hostages and 15 kidnappers were killed in an (air) raid by the Algerian army," the spokesman said in remarks that have not been independently confirmed.

France cannot confirm that its citizens are among foreign hostages taken by Islamic extremists at an Algerian gas field, government spokeswoman Najat Vallaud-Belkacem said Thursday.

"We are not able, at this current time, to confirm the presence of French citizens among the hostages," she told Radio Classique.

Somalia's Shebab Islamists said Thursday they have executed a French agent they have held since 2009, as France said the hostage was likely killed several days ago in a failed rescue attempt.

"16:30 GMT, Wednesday, 16 January, 2013. Denis Allex is executed," the group said on its Twitter feed Thursday, with the report confirmed by a senior Shebab official who said the group might release audio and video of the "execution."

Turkey and France have agreed to resume talks on civilian nuclear energy at a time Ankara plans to build three plants within the next five years, French Foreign Trade Minister Nicole Bricq said on Wednesday.

"We met the (energy) minister to discuss Turkey's important projects in nuclear facilities," said Bricq after a meeting with Energy Minister Taner Yildiz. "France claims excellence in this field...so it is only natural that we have these discussions."

Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday pledged two German Transall military transport planes for the mission against Islamist rebels in Mali, warning that allowing "terrorism" there would endanger Europe.

Speaking to reporters after a meeting with Ivory Coast President and ECOWAS chairman Alassane Ouattara, Merkel said Berlin would make two planes available "in a short timeframe" to ferry African troops into the capital Bamako.

Algeria, which has opened its airspace to French warplanes hitting Islamists in northern Mali, was targeted Wednesday in a deadly revenge attack in which militants seized 41 Western hostages.

The Islamists, who said they entered Algeria from northern Mali, told Mauritanian media they were holding 41 Westerners, among them French, British and Japanese citizens, as well as seven Americans, at a southern gas field.

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation on Wednesday expressed support for the French-led Mali military operation, a day after calling it "premature" and urging a ceasefire.

OIC chief Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu "has reaffirmed the full support and solidarity with the Republic of Mali in its efforts to expeditiously recover areas in the north of its territory under the control of armed groups in order to restore its national unity and territorial integrity," a statement said.

French troops engaged in close combat with Islamist rebels on Wednesday in Mali as al-Qaida-linked fighters attacked a gas plant in neighboring Algeria taking several foreigners hostage.

After days of airstrikes on Islamist positions in the territory they have occupied since April, French and Malian troops battled the insurgents in the small town of Diabaly, some 400 kilometers (250 miles) north of Bamako.

Somali Islamists said Wednesday they have decided to execute the French intelligence officer they have held for more than three years and who was the object Saturday of a botched rescue bid.

The al-Qaida linked Shebab in a statement said they have "reached a unanimous decision to execute the French intelligence officer, Denis Allex." Paris has said the officer was most likely killed by his captors during the failed rescue attempt.