The Malian army has taken control of three northern towns which were attacked by Tuareg rebels, leading to two days of fierce clashes, a military source said Friday.

"The Malian army is back in control in Menaka, Tessalit and Aguelhok. Reinforcements are in place," said a military source from regional army headquarters.

Mali's army has deployed extra troops and military equipment to its largely-desert north where Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb operates, officials said Friday.

"The Malian army has deployed men, equipment and over 200 vehicles to the north," an administrative source said.

The arrest of Moammar Gadhafi's son Seif al-Islam is just a matter of time, the International Criminal Court's prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said Wednesday.

"The question is not if he will be arrested, it's when," Moreno-Ocampo told a press conference at the court's headquarters in The Hague.

Former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s son and onetime heir apparent Seif al-Islam was on Tuesday poised to cross into Niger along with his father's ex-intelligence chief, a Tuareg official said.

The two are the top most wanted fugitives from the slain despot's ousted circle, who are wanted by the International Criminal Court and had been widely expected to seek refuge in Niger following Gadhafi’s death last week.

Libya's former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi, wanted by the International Criminal Court, has been spotted in northern Niger, a government source in the capital Niamey said Saturday.

"The presence of Abdullah al Senussi has been indicated in the far north of Niger" near the border with Libya, the source told AFP.

The Nigerien government said Friday it will not send fallen Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s son Saadi back home from Niger, where he fled after the collapse of the regime in Tripoli.

Asked by journalists if Niger would turn Gadhafi’s son over to Libya's new authorities, government spokesman Marou Amadou said, "No."

Four Frenchmen held by al-Qaida's North African franchise on Friday marked a year since their capture, with negotiations for their release complicated by the fallout of the Libyan chaos.

On September 16 last year, seven people were snatched by the radical group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in Arlit, a uranium mining town in northern Niger.

Faced with the threat of drought, Niger's president Mahamadou Issoufou took part in a national collective prayer Saturday asking for rain.

Several hundred Muslims joined with the president to recite the Koran and ask for rainfall in a televised ceremony at Niamey's grand mosque led by Sheikh Djabir Ismael, president of the AIN, Niger's largest Islamic association.