French hostage Herve Gourdel beheaded in Algeria

An Algerian jihadist group has released a video that appears to show the beheading of French tourist Herve Gourdel, who was seized Sunday.
Jund al-Khilafa, an ally of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria and Iraq, had set a 24-hour deadline for France to halt air strikes on IS in Iraq, according to a news agency.
Mr Gourdel, 55, was abducted in the north-east Kabylie region.
France joined US air strikes on IS in Iraq last week but has not taken part in strikes on the group in Syria.
French President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls publicly rejected the group's ultimatum Tuesday.
The video of Mr Gourdel apparently being killed was entitled "Message of blood for the French government".
IS itself has beheaded three Western hostages since August: US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British aid worker David Haines. Their deaths were all filmed and posted online.
The group has also threatened to kill Alan Henning, a taxi driver from the UK, who was seized while on an aid mission to Syria in December.
On Sunday, it warned it would target Americans and other Western citizens, "especially the spiteful and filthy French".
Mr Gourdel was a mountain guide in the Mercantour national park north of the French city of Nice.
He had been organising treks through the Atlas Mountains of Morocco for some 20 years, AFP news agency reports.
Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of the Caliphate) pledged allegiance to IS on 14 September.
Until then it had been known as part of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which grew out of an Algerian militant group and is now active across North and parts of West Africa.