The members of the band Delorean were phoned in their hotel by someone posing as a policeman and told to move to a different hotel where the kidnappers were.
The minister said the kidnappers demanded her resignation after she suspended payments to fuel marketers following reports that billions of dollars were being lost in a scam.
And the Algerian government claims it had no alternative—it had to launch an attack to stop the kidnappers fleeing into the desert with their captives.