By Abdoulaye Massalatchi

NIAMEY, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Security forces in Niger have detained two French TV journalists after they defied a ban on foreign reporters in the north of the African country to cover a Tuareg-led rebellion, a gendarmerie officer said on Wednesday.

The impoverished country, where former colonial power France mines valuable uranium, has banned foreign reporters from its Saharan north, where rebels led by nomadic Tuareg tribesmen have killed at least 49 government security personnel since February.

The reporters were working for a production company producing a report for European TV station ARTE, a source at ARTE told Reuters in Paris.

The pair had been in police custody since Monday and were both well, the source said, but could give no further details on their legal situation or the accusations against them.

The officer from the Gendarmerie, or paramilitary police, said the reporters had obtained accreditation to cover a story about bird flu in the southern city of Maradi.

When they returned to the capital Niamey, the reporters were found with tapes filmed in collaboration with members of the Tuareg-led rebel Niger Justice Movement (MNJ), said the officer, who declined to be named.

Niger has been holding Moussa Kaka, the local correspondent of Radio France International (RFI), since Sept. 20 on suspicion of aiding the MNJ rebellion.

RFI insists Kaka's contacts with the group were purely professional and his lawyer has said tapes allegedly linking Kaka to the rebels were illegally recorded.

A second local journalist, Ibrahim Diallo Manzo, who works for the magazine Air Info in the main northern town of Agadez, has been in detention there since Oct. 9.

The rebellion has increased tensions between Paris and Niamey, which earlier this year accused French state-controlled uranium miner and nuclear reactor maker Areva <CEPFi.PA> of paying army deserters who joined the rebellion.

The government also declared the company's top local representative, a French national, persona non grata.

At the same time, Niger has allocated dozens of uranium prospecting licences to companies from around the world, smashing Areva's decades-old monopoly on an industry which is the country's main source of foreign exchange. (Additional reporting by Thierry Leveque in Paris; writing by Alistair Thomson; Editing by Giles Elgood)

AlertNet news is provided by