Nairobi/Mogadishu  - Somali authorities have opened negotiations with the abductors of two French government advisors abducted Tuesday in Mogadishu, Defence Minister Mohamed Abdi Gandhi said Wednesday.

He told the French radio station RFI the abductors were "not Islamists, but criminals profiting from the situation in Mogadishu. They appear to want ransom money. This is not a political kidnapping."

Reporters Without Bporders meawhile hit out at the two having apparently identified themselves as journalists, saying the two "were on official business" and had no need to hide behind any other identity.

They were only increasing the already high danger in which working journalists found themselves in the region, the organisation said.

The French Foreign Ministry Tuesday had corrected initial reports of two reporters being abducted, saying the two were in Mogadishu on an official mission to advise the transition government of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on security matters.

Local witnesses told the German Press Agency dpa that armed men, who appeared to be wearing police uniforms, entered a hotel in an Islamist rebel-controlled part of the city and took two the men away.

Intense fighting between insurgent groups and government forces started again in early May in Somalia, a country that has not had a strong central government in nearly two decades. (dpa)