Obama and Cameron discuss hostage situation in Algeria over phone

US President Barack Obama on Thursday spoke over phone with British Prime Minister David Cameron on an array of global issues, including the hostage situation in Algeria, the White House said in a statement. Without detailing their conversation on the hostage situation, the White House said the two leaders expressed their support for the "international community's efforts, led by France, to deny terrorists a safe haven in Mali." The phone call came after the Algerian military launched an air and ground assault earlier in the day in an attempt to rescue the hostages kidnapped by a group of militants at a natural gas plant operated jointly by British Petroleum and Algerian and Norwegian companies. The Algerian official APS news agency reported Thursday that the rescue operation was over, without giving the exact casualties of the hostages. The militants are aimed at avenging Algeria's support for French military operations against Islamic militants in Mali. They claimed that they had taken 41 foreigners hostage, including American, British, French, Irish, Norwegian and Japanese citizens. Besides the hostage crisis, Obama said that the United States values "a strong UK in a strong European Union, which makes critical contributions to peace, prosperity, and security in Europe and around the world," according to the White House.