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Seven foreigners kidnapped in Niger, five French
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Seven foreigners kidnapped in Niger, five French
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By Abdoulaye Massalatchi
NIAMEY |
Thu Sep 16, 2010 4:21pm EDT
NIAMEY (Reuters) - Seven foreigners, including five French nationals, were kidnapped on Thursday in the northern uranium mining zone of Niger in West Africa, officials said.
The kidnapping, which includes a French employee of nuclear firm Areva and his wife, is likely to raise questions about security for mine workers in the region, where groups linked to al Qaeda's North African wing operate.
The five others worked for Vinci, whose subsidiary Sogea-Satom is working as a contractor in the region.
The attack took place in the town of Arlit, the first of a wave of kidnappings to have taken place within the mining zone rather than in the remote desert where previous hostage-takings have occurred in the past year.
"Five French citizens are seemingly in the group," Bernard Valero, a French Foreign Ministry spokesman, told Reuters in Paris. "(There have been) no demands for the moment, we will see what comes of that."
Areva and Vinci confirmed the overnight kidnapping in Arlit, a town used as a base for mining firms in Niger's north, and said they were working with the authorities to free the seven.
Besidees the five French nationals, the two others kidnapped were from Togo and Madagascar, the Nigerien government said late on Thursday.
Tuareg rebels have previously been active in the region but attacks have died off since fighting eased last year.
However, the kidnapping of foreigners has become more frequent in West Africa's Sahara-Sahel region over the past year, with hostages usually ending up in the hands of groups linked to al Qaeda's North African wing, AQIM.
"No matter who perpetrated this, there's a high likelihood they'll end up with AQIM," said Anna Murison, head of global jihad forecasting at Exclusive Analysis corporate intelligence company.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, talking to journalists in Brussels during a European Union summit, said he planned to hold emergency talks later on Thursday to decide what measures France would take.
"I have asked the Niger authorities to do all they can to free them," he said.
Earlier at a Paris news conference, French Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux said France was on heightened terrorist alert.
"Several factors from the past few days and past few hours highlight that the terrorist threat is at a heightened level," he said when asked about the kidnappings and two bomb scares earlier this week.
TAKEN WHILE ASLEEP
A Nigerien security source said soldiers from a nearby military base were combing the region for the hostages.
Areva, which employs 2,500 people at three mine sites in Niger, said it would beef up security. Niger hopes to become the world's No. 2 uranium producer when the Imouraren mine comes on line in 2013 or 2014.
Neither France nor the mining firms gave details of how the group was seized but a local businessman and a source in the mining industry in Niger told Reuters the foreigners were taken while they slept in their houses in the middle of town.
"They went to their houses and picked them. They knew exactly where they were -- it is very worrying," the businessman said. Witnesses in Arlit reported seeing unusual vehicle movements overnight but there was no reaction from the security forces, the mining industry source said.
France has said it is at war with the group and pledged further military support to countries in the region after Islamists said in July they had executed a French citizen they were holding when a failed French-Mauritanian raid to free him.
(Additional reporting by Nicholas Vinocur and John Irish in Paris; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Daniel Magnowski and Elizabeth Fullerton)
World
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