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Qaeda claims it has French, Spanish hostages
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Qaeda claims it has French, Spanish hostages
AFP - 2 hours 14 minutes ago
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A handout photo of Frenchman Pierre Camatte, who was kidnapped on November 25 in Menaka, northern Mali. Al-Qaeda's north African branch has claimed the kidnappings of the Frenchman and three Spaniards, seized late last month in Mali and Mauritania, in an audio tape released Tuesday by Al-Jazeera television.
MENAKA, Mali (AFP) - – Al-Qaeda's north African branch claimed Tuesday it was holding four European hostages seized late last month, as a security source said the hardline cell holding three Spaniards killed a British hostage earlier this year.
Frenchman Pierre Camatte was seized November 25 in Mali while the three Spaniards were kidnapped four days later in neighbouring Mauritania.
For the first time, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) said it was holding all four, in a video released by Al-Jazeera television.
"Two units of the valiant mujahedeen managed to kidnap four Europeans in two distinct operations," said Saleh Abu Mohammad, spokesman for AQIM.
The spokesman, who identified the Spanish hostages by name, added that "France and Spain will be informed later of the legitimate demands of the mujahedeen." He did not go into detail about the demands.
Speaking in the northern Mali town of Menaka, the state security source told AFP that the three Spaniards "are in the hands of the hardline wing of AQIM led by Abou Zeid."
The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the cell as "very dangerous."
"We must act quickly. Abou Zeid has already killed a British tourist," referring to Edwin Dyer, who was executed in June, six months after being kidnapped in Niger, near the Mali border.
Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb calls itself the north African branch of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda, the terror network that claimed responsibility for the 9/11 bombings in the United States.
The Spanish government said it considered the claim credible, in a foreign ministry statement.
It said that the inter-ministerial technical committee set up by the Madrid government "attributes credibility to this claim".
Camatte was snatched from a hotel in Menaka in the Sahel region of northern Mali, more than 1,500 kilometres (1,000 miles) from the capital Bamako, during the night of November 25.
Malian and Western security forces say the Frenchman, a regular visitor to Mali where he cultivates a plant known for its anti-malaria properties, is being held by a hardline faction within Al-Qaeda's north African branch.
The three Spanish volunteers, two men and a women, were travelling in Mauritania in a convoy delivering humanitarian aid to west Africa when they were kidnapped on November 29.
Identified as Albert Vilalta, 35, Alicia Gamez, 35, and Roque Pascual, 50, they were delivering humanitarian aid for the Spanish group Barcelona Accio Solidaria when they were abducted.
The AQIM spokesman said Vilalta was the director of a company that makes tunnels.
The Spanish kidnappings were the first in Mauritania, which has endured two years of deadly attacks claimed by AQIM.
Most observers in the country's capital Nouakchott had attributed the abductions to armed Islamists, making a connection with the kidnapping of the Frenchman in the northeast of neighbouring Mali.
Spain's Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said on November 30 that the kidnappings bore the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda's north African branch.
"Everything would seem to indicate that it was a kidnapping. If that's the case, as I fear it is, everything would indicate that it is an AQIM kidnapping," the minister said.
According to the editor of Mauritania's independent weekly Tahalil Hebdo, Isselmou Ould Salihi, the militants are "targetting Europe, and especially France and Spain, who are involved in the fight against AQIM in the region."
"They want to get leverage to negotiate the liberation of their fighters held in Nouakchott and to get ransoms."
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