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The directives in Europe, India and Japan followed an order Wednesday by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration grounding the planes operated by U.S. carriers.

The decisions are a result of incidents involving a plane that was parked in Boston and one in Japan that had to make an emergency landing Wednesday morning after an alarm warning of smoke in the cockpit.

In Japan on Thursday, the transportation ministry issued a formal order to ground all 787s indefinitely, until concerns over the aircraft's battery systems are resolved. All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines had already voluntarily grounded their 787s on Wednesday.

European safety regulators also said they would ground Dreamliners, affecting LOT of Poland, the only carrier that operates the jets in that region. In India, the aviation regulator grounded all six of the 787s operated by the state-owned carrier Air India.

LAN Airlines of Chile said it was following suit, acting in coordination with the Chilean Aeronautical Authority.

The F.A.A.'s emergency directive, issued Wednesday night, initially applies to United Airlines, the only American carrier using the new plane so far, with six 787s.

Boeing, based in Chicago, has a lot riding on the 787, and its stock dropped nearly 3.4 percent Wednesday to $74.34. The company has outlined ambitious plans to double its production rate to 10 planes a month by the end of 2013. It is also starting to build a stretch version and considering an even larger one after that.

"We are confident the 787 is safe and we stand behind its overall integrity," Jim McNerney, Boeing's chief executive, said in a statement.

The grounding — an unusual action for a new plane — focuses on one of the more risky design choices made by Boeing, namely to make extensive use of lithium-ion batteries aboard its airplanes for the first time.

Until now, much of the attention on the 787 was focused on its lighter composite materials and more efficient engines, meant to usher in a new era of more fuel-efficient travel, particularly over long distances. The batteries are part of an electrical system that replaces many mechanical and hydraulic ones that are common in previous jets.

The 787's problems could jeopardize one of its major features, its ability to fly long distances at a lower cost. The plane is certified to fly 180 minutes from an airport. The U.S. government is unlikely to extend that to 330 minutes, as Boeing has promised, until all problems with the plane have been resolved.

For Boeing, "it's crucial to get it right," said Richard L. Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at Teal Group in Fairfax, Virginia. "They've got a brief and closing window in which they can convince the public and their flying customers that this is not a problem child."

The 787 uses two identical lithium-ion batteries, each about one and a half to two times the size of a typical car battery. One battery, in the rear electrical equipment bay near the wings, is used to start the auxiliary power unit, a small engine in the tail that is used most often to provide power for the plane while it is on the ground. The other battery, called the main battery, starts the pilot's computer displays and serves as a backup for flight systems.

The maker of the 787's batteries, GS Yuasa of Japan, has declined to comment on the problems.

Boeing has defended the novel use of the batteries and said it had put in place a series of systems meant to prevent overcharging and overheating.

In a conference call last week with reporters, Boeing's chief engineer for the 787, Mike Sinnett, said that the company had long been aware of possible problems with lithium-ion batteries but that it had built in numerous redundant features to keep any problems with the batteries from threatening the plane in flight. He said that the batteries had not had any problems in 1.3 million hours of flight and that Boeing was trying to understand what had caused the problems.

Mr. Sinnett said that if the lithium-ion batteries started a fire, it would be nearly impossible to put out because the batteries produce oxygen when burning. Mr. Sinnett said that the plane was designed to survive such an event in flight, when the cabin's air-pressure system protects passengers and allows the plane to vent the smoke outside. The plane is also designed, he said, to contain a fire to a small area.

"Fire suppressants just won't work on a situation like that," he said in the conference call. "So something like that is very difficult to put out."

Heat from the fire on the plane parked in Boston last week was so extreme that it melted the bolts holding the battery to the equipment rack. Firefighters had to use a hydraulic tool to cut it loose.

The solutions to the battery problem could be simple, analysts said, like encasing the battery in a stronger shell or monitoring the batteries more closely. But if Boeing had to switch to more conventional nickel-cadmium or lead-acid batteries, they would have to be larger, adding more weight to the plane and cutting into the plane's fuel-savings potential.

The emergency landing Wednesday was the latest in a string of incidents for the 787, which also included an electrical failure, fuel leaks and other smaller mishaps. But the latest event raised concerns that the 787's problems were potentially more serious than thought and led to doubts about the plane's safety and reliability.

Lithium-ion batteries provide power more quickly than conventional batteries and can be recharged quickly. They are increasingly used in cellphones, computers and electric cars but also have known risks of fires and explosions, particularly if they overheat or overcharge.

While the Federal Aviation Agency has recognized these hazards, it still decided in 2007 to allow Boeing to use them in the 787 as long as the company took a series of protective measures. At the time, the agency noted that "lithium ion batteries are significantly more susceptible to internal failures that can lead to self-sustaining increases in temperature and pressure" than conventional batteries.

As part of the emergency directive Wednesday, the U.S. government said it would "validate that the 787 batteries and the battery system on the aircraft are in compliance with the special condition the agency issued as part of the aircraft's certification."

Eight airlines now fly the 787, which entered service in November 2011. All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines in Japan own 24 of them in total. The other operators are Air India, Ethiopian Airlines, LAN Airlines of Chile, LOT of Poland and Qatar Airways. Orders for about 800 additional 787s are in the pipeline.

The airplane's six power generators produce enough electricity to power 500 houses. By contrast, the Boeing 777, a larger aircraft, can generate only a fifth of the 787's electric power.

Replacing batteries on the 787 with different ones, like metal hydride batteries, is theoretically possible but would be costly, said Hans J. Weber, the president of Tecop International, an aviation consulting firm.

He estimated that different batteries could double the weight of the current systems and would be twice the size.

"It's not trivial, but it could be done," Mr. Weber said.

Boeing expects to sell 5,000 787s in the next 20 years. It is counting on the Dreamliner in the global sales battle with Airbus, its European rival, which plans to introduce its own carbon-composite plane, the A350, in the second half of 2014. Boeing has said that it outsourced too much of the work on the 787 to suppliers who were willing, collectively, to cover billions of dollars of the development costs, and that many parts needed reworking.

Boeing has said it expects profit percentages averaging in the low single digits on the first 1,100 planes, which could include deliveries into 2021. But David E. Strauss, an analyst at UBS, cautioned last month that Boeing's production costs might remain too high for it to make a profit on any of the plane sales before 2021.

While problems are common with the introduction of a new model — including the Airbus A380, the Boeing 777 and the Boeing 747 — analysts say the issue could become a growing embarrassment for Boeing if travelers or airlines began to lose confidence in the Dreamliner.

Hiroko Tabuchi contributed reporting from Tokyo, Sruthi Gottipati from New Delhi, Bettina Wassener from Hong Kong and Nicola Clark from Paris.

Algerian officials said at least two people, including a Briton, were killed in the assault, which began with an ambush on a bus trying to ferry gas-field workers to an airport.

The British Foreign Office confirmed that a British citizen had been killed in the attack but a spokeswoman declined to give details or identify the victim. Foreign Secretary William Hague said the hostages included "a number of British nationals. This is therefore an extremely dangerous situation."

Hundreds of Algerian security forces surrounded the gas-field compound, creating a tense standoff, and the country's interior minister said there would be no negotiations.

Algeria's official news agency said at least 20 fighters had carried out the attack and mass abduction. There were unconfirmed reports late on Wednesday that the security forces had tried to storm the compound and had retreated under gunfire from the hostage takers.

Many details of the assault on the gas field in a barren desert site near Libya's border remained murky, including the precise number of hostages, which could be as high as 41, according to claims by the attackers quoted by regional news agencies. American, French, British, Japanese and Norwegian citizens who worked at the field were known to be among them, officials said.

Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta called the gas-field attack a terrorist act and said the United States was weighing a response. His statement suggested that the Obama administration could be drawn into a military entanglement in North Africa that it had been seeking to keep at arm's length — even as it has conceded that the region has become a new haven for extremists who threaten Western security and vital interests.

"I want to assure the American people that the United States will take all necessary and proper steps that are required to deal with this situation," Mr. Panetta said during a visit to Italy.

The gas-field attack, which seemed to take foreign governments and the British and Norwegian companies that help run the facility completely by surprise, appeared to make good on a pledge by the Islamist militants who seized northern Mali last year to sharply expand their struggle against the West in response to France's military intervention that began last week.

The hostage taking potentially broadened the conflict beyond Mali's borders and raised the possibility of drawing an increasing number of foreign countries into direct involvement, particularly if expatriates working in the vast energy extraction industries of North Africa become targets. It also doubled, at least, the number of non-African hostages that Islamist militants in northern and western Africa have been using as bargaining chips to finance themselves in recent years through ransoms that have totaled millions of dollars.

But there was no indication that the gas-field attackers wanted money, and no other demands or ultimatums were issued. In a statement sent to ANI, a Mauritanian news agency, they demanded the "immediate halt of the aggression against our own in Mali."

The statement, made by a group called Al Mulathameen, which has links to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the North African affiliate of Al Qaeda, claimed it was holding more than 40 "crusaders" — apparently a reference to non-Muslims — "including seven Americans, two French, two British as well as other citizens of various European nationalities."

Algeria's interior minister, Daho Ould Kablia, said, according to Reuters, that the raid was led by Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who fought Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s and recently set up his own group in the Sahara after falling out with other local Qaeda leaders.

Mr. Belmokhtar is known to French intelligence officials as "the Uncatchable" and to some locals as "Mister Marlboro" for his illicit cigarette-running business, the news agency said. His ties to Islamist extremists who seized towns across northern Mali last year are unclear.

The gas-field attack coincided with an escalation of the fight inside Mali, according to Western and Malian officials, as French ground troops, joined by soldiers of the Malian Army, engaged in combat with Islamist fighters. The officials said the French-Malian units had begun to beat back the Islamist militant advance southward from northern Mali, a move that had provoked the intervention ordered by President François Hollande of France.

The attackers seemed particularly incensed that Algeria's government had permitted the French to use Algerian airspace to fly warplanes and military equipment into Mali, according to their statement, which may explain why they chose Algeria for retaliation. Some Algerian military experts said the Algerian public also was unhappy about the government's decision.

"The setting in motion of a military machine in north Mali was going to have definite repercussions in Algeria," said Mohamed Chafik Mesbah, a former Algerian Army officer and political scientist, adding, . "There are going to be much worse consequences. There will be more attacks."

A senior Algerian official said the militants, who claimed to have come from Mali, had used three unmarked trucks to breach the gas-field compound, outside the town of In Amenas. An oil company official who had knowledge of the attack said the militants had shut down production at the site, an indication of carefully planning. But how and why they chose In Amenas, which is more than 700 miles from the Malian border and is much closer to Libya, were among the unknowns.

The facility is the fourth-largest gas development in Algeria, a major oil producer and OPEC member. The In Amenas gas compression plant is operated by BP of Britain, the Norwegian company Statoil and the Algerian national oil company Sonatrach.

Bard Glad Pedersen, a Statoil spokesman, said that of 17 Statoil employees who had been working in the field, four escaped to a nearby Algerian military camp, but he would not say how. The Sahara Media Agency of Mauritania, quoting what it described as a spokesman for the militants, said that they were holding five hostages in a production facility on the site and 36 others in a housing area, and that there were as many as 400 Algerian soldiers surrounding the operation. But that information could not be confirmed.

Islamist groups and bandits have long operated in the deserts of western and northern Africa, and a collection of Islamists have occupied the vast expanse of northern Mali since a government crisis in that country last March. Those groups, including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had pledged to strike against France's interests on the continent and abroad, as well as those of nations backing the French operations. In France, security has been reinforced at airports, train stations and other public spaces.

The militant groups are financed in large part through ransoms paid for the freeing of Western hostages, and regular kidnappings have occurred in the West African desert in recent years. At least seven French citizens are presently being held there, officials say.

Oil and gas are central to the Algerian economy, accounting for more than a third of the country's gross domestic product, over 95 percent of its export earnings and 60 percent of government financial receipts. Algeria is an important gas supplier to France, Spain, Turkey, Italy and Britain.

Algeria has also historically been known as a relatively secure place for foreign companies to work and invest. Sonatrach and the security forces had put tight security around oil and gas facilities during the struggle with Islamic militants in the 1990s, when energy infrastructure was never a major insurgent target.

Energy experts expressed concern that the Algerian raid could signal a new strategy by Islamic militants to attack the West by focusing on Western-operated oil and gas facilities in the region.

Helima Croft, a Barclays Capital senior geopolitical strategist,said if groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb "decide as a change in tactic they go after Western energy interests, then you have to look at a threat in all these countries, including Libya, Nigeria and Morocco."

She added: "This type of attack had to have advanced planning. It's not an easy target of opportunity."