About 60 foreigners are still held hostage or missing at an Algerian gas plant.
It is unclear how many of them are still being held directly under guard by the gunmen and how many might be in hiding in the sprawling compound.
It is also not known whether some might have been killed and the bodies not found.
The Algerian state news agency APS reported this afternoon that security forces were seeking a peaceful solution.
"[The army] is still trying to achieve a 'peaceful outcome' before neutralising the terrorist group that is holed up in the [facility] and freeing a group of hostages that is still being held," APS said, quoting a security source.
Mauritanian news agency ANI has reported that the kidnappers have offered to swap US captives for two militants jailed in the US.
They named the people they want freed as Pakistani Aafia Siddiqui and Egyptian Omar Abdel-Rahman, known as "The Blind Sheikh", ANI reported, citing the group's spokesman.
The report did not say how many US hostages were being held.
Earlier, a source said more than half of the 132 foreign hostages seized by Islamist militants were free.
British Prime Minister David Cameron this morning said he was disappointed after not being told in advance of an Algerian government rescue attempt yesterday.
Meanwhile, family and friends of Stephen McFaul, who escaped the hostage crisis, are preparing to welcome him home tomorrow.
The 36-year-old from west Belfast had explosives placed around his neck by al-Qaeda-linked kidnappers.
He was able to flee after a vehicle he was in crashed while coming under attack from Algerian forces.
Mr McFaul described the ordeal to an Arabic television channel as it was happening.
He said he saw four jeeps full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops, whose commanders said they moved in about 30 hours after the siege began because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.
Algeria's government spokesman made clear the leadership in Algiers remains implacably at odds with Islamist guerrillas, who remain at large in the south years after the civil war in which some 200,000 people died.
Communication Minister Mohamed Said repeated their refusal ever to negotiate with hostage-takers.
"We say that in the face of terrorism, yesterday as today as tomorrow, there will be no negotiation, no blackmail, no respite in the struggle against terrorism," he said.
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