ALGIERS, September 6, 2008 (AFP) - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice touched down in Algeria Saturday for talks with President Abedelaziz Bouteflika, as her North Africa visit edged towards its conclusion.

After a landmark meeting with former Western pariah, Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi, Rice said she held a 'very good and extensive discussion' with Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

She was to leave Algiers later Saturday for Morocco, but ignored the fifth Maghreb nation of Mauritania, amid US refusal to recognise the legitimacy of its leaders after a military coup there.

Rice was greeted at Algiers airport at around 1330 GMT by her Algerian counterpart Mourad Medelci before holding talks with Bouteflika, focused on the fight against extremists, the future of the disputed Western Sahara and the strengthening of economic ties, Algeria's state radio reported.

Her route within Algeria was the subject of heightened security precautions, after a jihadist on an Islamist website urged the North African branch of Al-Qaeda to assassinate Rice during her regional tour.

Several Algerian newspapers reported Saturday that the army killed an armed Islamist, said to be a senior member of Al-Qaeda's Maghreb organisation, in the eastern Kabylie region, although no official confirmation was forthcoming.

Meanwhile, the head of the Algerian-backed Polisario Front, which controls a portion of the desert territory occupied by Morocco for the last two decades, Mohamed Abdelaziz, urged Rice to convince Rabat to 'respect the right of the Saharawi people' to self-determination, SPS news agency reported.

Morocco and Polisario have been engaged in UN-sponsored negotiations over the former Spanish colony's future since June last year.

Rice's talks with the Tunisian leader on the fight against extremism and reforms in his country took place at the Tunisian leader's palace in the ancient city of Carthage. Ben Ali was nominated as a candidate in July for a fifth five-year term come presidential elections in 2009.

'There has been some political reform,' she told journalists on the flight to Algiers. 'We have been very clear that we would hope that Tunisia would do more and particularly in the lead up to the 2009 election.'

She said she wanted to see 'media access, freedom on the Internet, access to television for the opposition' enshrined as political rights.

Human rights groups have frequently criticised Ben Ali's iron-fisted rule over Tunisia, and expressed fears of ill-treatment of Tunisians repatriated after being held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

But Rice, who highlighted Tunisia's role as a go-between with Libya, said that as 'good friends... we can have very good and intense discussions about internal and external matters.'

She said she had raised in particular 'the extraordinary role of women in Tunisia,' adding: 'Women have made great progress here.'

A planned visit to a cemetery for US dead from World War II before Rice left for Algeria was cancelled.

The United States gives technical assistance to the Tunisian army. The two countries also held joint manoeuvres in May at the Bizerte naval and air base and in the Mediterranean.

Talks on a free-trade accord are also underway. Bilateral trade between Tunisia and the United States is estimated at about 600 million dollars a year. US firms make substantial investments in the Tunisian oil and energy sector.

Rice arrived in Tunis from Tripoli where she was the first US secretary of state to visit for 55 years, sealing a rapprochement between the two countries in a timely foreign policy success for the outgoing administration of George W. Bush.