Hollande rules out military operation in Libya amid rising terror threats

French President Francois Hollande on Friday said Paris has no plan to launch a military operation in Libya.

In an interview with French media, the president admitted that terrorist cells based in southern Libya were "most likely" to be behind the attacks on French Areva's uranium mine and a military camp in northern Niger last week.

Earlier this month, Niger officials said they believed the perpetrators came from Libya's south.

"We must see how we can cooperate with the Libyan authorities to nullify these terrorists," Hollande said, referring to the growing risks of al-Qaida-linked groups' use of restless Libya as a base for their terrorist assaults.

However, the French president ruled out a military intervention in the North African country to hunt down Islamist insurgents as "we have not been asked by the Libyan government for help, and the United Nations has not proposed an intervention," he said.

"There are rules for any French intervention. We act in the legitimacy that the UN resolutions give us," Hollande stressed.

In April, the French embassy in the Libyan capital was hit by a car bomb, injuring two French guards and causing heavy damage to the building. Hollande said that those behind the attack had not been identified yet.

France has been the target of terrorist attacks following its military commitment mainly in Afghanistan and in Mali. A total of seven French nationals are now in hands of al-Qaida-linked groups in the Sahel region.