A big airlift operation has begun to transport hundreds of drivers and vehicles taking part in the Dakar motor rally some fifteen hundred kilometres across the Sahara desert.

The airlift from Niamey in Niger was organised after the French government warned the organisers of what they said was a terrorist threat to the next stage of the rally, which runs just south of the Algerian border.

Two giant Antonov transport planes are carrying out a series of flights to carry over one thousand drivers and support team members and their three-hundred vehicles to Sabha in southern Libya, where the race will be resumed early next week.

The chief rally organiser, Hubert Auriol, said the threat came from Islamist rebels originating from Algeria. The annual rally began in Senegal on Thursday and is scheduled to finish in Cairo in two weeks time.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service