Nigerien soldier sits inside a car escorting press members outside France’s state-owned nuclear giant Areva’s uranium mine on September 26, 2010 in Arlit. Gunmen seized the five French nationals, most working for France’s state-owned nuclear giant Areva or its engineering sub-contractor Satom, amd a Togolese and a Madagascan in a raid on September 16 on a uranium mining town in the deserts of northern Niger. Army chiefs and counter-terrorism experts from the Sahel region were meeting Sunday in southern Algeria in a bid to come to grips with the growing threat of Al-Qaeda-linked militants. AFP PHOTO / ISSOUF SANOGO (Photo credit should read ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images)