ALGERIA'S military has killed a militant involved in the abduction and beheading of French tourist Herve Gourdel in September, Justice Minister Tayeb Louh said yesterday.

The Caliphate Soldiers, a splinter group which has allied itself to Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, claimed responsibility for Gourdel's killing, saying it was in retaliation for France's intervention in Iraq.

"It emerges from the investigation on the assassination of French national Herve Gourdel that one of those who committed this murder, ... was killed by the army during an anti-terrorist operation in October," he told state news agency APS.

Gourdel, 55, was kidnapped in remote mountains east of Algiers.

The kidnapping was one of the first abductions of a foreigner by militants since the country ended a decade-long war with Islamist fighters in the 1990s.