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* Algerian PM: 38 dead civilians, 29 militants killed
* Dead Canadian named as "Chedad" coordinated attack -PM
* Of hostages, 37 foreigners killed; five more still missing
* Three Islamist assailants taken into custody
* Japanese, Filipinos, British, Norwegians among the dead
By Lamine Chikhi
ALGIERS, Jan 21 (Reuters) - A total of 37 foreigners and anAlgerian died at a desert gas plant and five are still missingafter a four-day hostage-taking coordinated by a Canadiangunman, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said onMonday.
Sellal also told a news conference that 29 Islamists hadbeen killed in the siege, which Algerian forces ended bystorming the plant on Saturday, and three were taken alive. Mostof the gunmen were from various states of north and west Africa.
With some bodies burned beyond recognition and Algerianforces still combing the sprawling site, some details were stillunclear or at odds with figures from other governments.
The siege has shaken confidence in the security of Algeria'svital energy industry and drawn attention to Islamist militancyacross the Sahara, where France has sent troops to neighbouringMali to fight rebels who have obtained weaponry from Libya.
Of the 38 dead captives, out of a total workforce of some800 at the In Amenas gas facility, seven were still unidentifiedbut assumed to be foreigners, Algerian premier Sellal said.
Citizens of nine countries died, he said, among them sevenJapanese, six Filipinos, two Romanians, an American, a Frenchmanand four Britons. Britain said three Britons were dead and threeplus a London-based Colombian were missing and believed dead.
Norway said the fate of five of its citizens was unclear; inaddition to seven Japanese dead, Tokyo said three were missing.
An Algerian security source had earlier told Reuters thatdocuments found on the bodies of two militants had identifiedthem as Canadians: "A Canadian was among the militants. He wascoordinating the attack," Sellal said, adding that the raidershad threatened to blow up the gas installation.
That Canadian's name was given only as Chedad. Algerianofficials have also named other militants in recent days ashaving leadership roles among the attackers. Veteran IslamistMokhtar Belmokhtar claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda.
In Ottawa, Canada's foreign affairs department said it wasseeking information, but referred to the possible involvement ofonly one Canadian.
The jihadists had planned the attack two months ago inneighbouring Mali, Sellal added. During the siege, from which hesaid they had hoped to take foreign hostages to Mali, thekidnappers had demanded France end its military operation.
Sellal said that initially the raiders in Algeria had triedto hijack a bus carrying foreign workers to a nearby airport andtake them hostage. "They started firing at the bus and receiveda severe response from the soldiers guarding the bus," he said."They failed to achieve their objective, which was to kidnapforeign workers from the bus."
He said special forces and army units were deployed againstthe militants, who had planted explosives in the gas plant witha view to blowing up the facility. Normally producing 10 percentof Algeria's natural gas, it was shut down during the incident.
The government now aims to reopen it this week.
One group of militants had tried to escape in some vehicles,each of which also was carrying three or four foreign workers,some of whom had explosives attached to their bodies.
After what he called a "fierce response from the armedforces", the raiders' vehicles crashed or exploded and one oftheir leaders was among those killed.
LIBYAN NUMBER PLATES
Sellal said the jihadists who staged the attack lastWednesday had crossed into the country from neighbouring Libya,after arriving there from Islamist-held northern Mali via Niger.
An Algerian newspaper said they had arrived in cars paintedin the colours of state energy company Sonatrach but registeredin Libya, a country awash with arms since Western powers backeda revolt to bring down Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
The raid has exposed the vulnerability of multinational-runoil and gas installations in an important producing region andpushed the growing threat from Islamist militant groups in theSahara to a prominent position in the West's security agenda.
Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has ordered aninvestigation into how security forces failed to prevent theattack, the daily El Khabar said.
Algerian Tahar Ben Cheneb - leader of a group called theMovement of Islamic Youth in the South who was killed on thefirst day of the assault - had been based in Libya where hemarried a local woman two months ago, it said.
ONE-EYED JIHADIST
Belmokhtar - a one-eyed jihadist who fought in Afghanistanand Algeria's civil war of the 1990s when the secular governmentfought Islamists - tied the desert attack to France'sintervention across the Sahara against Islamist rebels in Mali.
"We in al Qaeda announce this blessed operation," he said ina video, according to Sahara Media, a regional website. About 40attackers participated in the raid, he said, roughly matchingthe government's figures for fighters killed and captured.
Belmokhtar demanded an end to French air strikes againstIslamist fighters in neighbouring Mali. These began five daysbefore the fighters swooped before dawn and seized a plant thatproduces 10 percent of Algeria's natural gas exports.
U.S. and European officials doubt such a complex raid couldhave been organised quickly enough to have been conceived as adirect response to the French military intervention. However,the French action could have triggered an operation that hadalready been planned.
The group behind the raid, the Mulathameen Brigade,threatened to carry out more such attacks if Western powers didnot end what it called an assault on Muslims in Mali, accordingto the SITE service, which monitors militant statements.
In a statement published by the Mauritania-based NouakchottNews Agency, the hostage takers said they had offered talks about freeing the captives, but the Algerian authorities hadbeen determined to use military force. Sellal blamed the raidersfor the collapse of negotiations.
BLOODY SIEGE
The siege turned bloody on Thursday when the Algerian armyopened fire, saying fighters were trying to escape with theirprisoners. Survivors said Algerian forces blasted several trucksin a convoy carrying both hostages and their captors.
Nearly 700 Algerian workers and more than 100 foreignersescaped, mainly on Thursday when the fighters were driven fromthe residential barracks. Some captors remained holed up in theindustrial complex until Saturday when they were overrun.
The bloodshed has strained Algeria's relations with itsWestern allies, some of which have complained about being leftin the dark while the decision to storm the compound was beingtaken.
Nevertheless, Britain and France both defended the militaryaction by Algeria, the strongest military power in the Saharaand an ally the West needs in combating the militants.
"This would have been a most demanding task for securityforces anywhere in the world and we should acknowledge theresolve shown by the Algerians in undertaking it," British PrimeMinister David Cameron told parliament on Monday.
The raid on the plant, which was home to expatriate workersfrom Britain's BP, Norway's Statoil, Japanese engineering firmBGC Corp and others, exposed the vulnerability of multinationaloil operations in the Sahara.
However, Algeria is determined to press on with its energyindustry. Oil Minister Youcef Yousfi visited the site and saidphysical damage was minor, state news service APSE reported. Theplant would start up again in two days, he said.
Algeria, scarred by the civil war with Islamist insurgentsin the 1990s which claimed 200,000 lives, insisted from thestart of the crisis there would be no negotiation in the face ofterrorism. France especially needs close cooperation fromAlgeria to crush Islamist rebels in northernMali.
In a reference to Western concerns that the Sahara and thedry grasslands of the Sahel to its south may become a haven forits Islamist enemies as Afghanistan was under the Taliban before2001, Sellal said Algeria would not become "Sahelistan".
Cameron said Islamist threats to Britain from Afghanistanand Pakistan had diminished, compared with four years ago: "Butat the same time," he said, "Al Qaeda franchises have grown inYemen, Somalia and parts of North Africa."
