Tokyo/Diabaly: Japan said on Wednesday it would shut its embassy in Mali and evacuate staff, and was urging other Japanese to leave because of the deteriorating security situation in the war-torn country.

“Japan will temporarily close the embassy in Mali due to the worsening security in the country, including in the capital of Bamako. The staff will continue the operation in the embassy in France,” a foreign ministry statement said.

The decision came a day after Japan announced that at least seven of its citizens were killed in a hostage crisis in neighbouring Algeria.

Meanwhile, Mali’s army chief said his French-backed forces could reclaim the northern towns of Gao and fabled Timbuktu from rebels in a month, as more offers of aid poured in for the offensive.

French planes bombed a major base of the Al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) near Timbuktu, a defence ministry official said on condition of anonymity, as officials said a mansion belonging to Libyan former strongman Muammar Gaddafi was destroyed.

“In the course of the last French bombings, several jihadists died and the residence of Gaddafi, which had become the headquarters of the Islamists was destroyed,” a Malian security official said, adding there were no civilian deaths.

A militant killed by special forces during the siege of Algeria’s In Amenas gas complex used to be a driver at the desert facility, a security source told AFP on Wednesday.

“One of the killed assailants had worked as a driver for one of the companies operating within the complex,” the source said, adding that “he had resigned a year ago.”

The source was unable to specify who the slain militant had worked for, but indicated that his corpse was recognised by employees at the remote facility deep in the Sahara where a four-day siege last week ended in a bloodbath.

Special forces launched two assaults aimed at freeing both foreigners and Algerians taken hostage inside the complex - one on Thursday a day after the deadly drama unfolded and then in a final raid on Saturday.

On Monday, Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said that 37 foreign hostages and 29 militants were killed.

Five foreigners are still missing and seven burned bodies remain unidentified.

Sellal said that most of the dead hostages were killed execution-style with a single bullet to the head.