Al-Qaeda’s north African wing on Friday released to a news agency what it said were two photographs of five Westerners who were kidnapped last month.
The online Mauritanian news agency ANI, which in the past has carried statements from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), said the group had released the photographs to support a statement issued a day earlier claiming responsibility for the abductions.
One photo shows two of the hostages, French nationals Serge Lazarevic and Philippe Verdon, with three armed men behind them, their faces obscured by turbans.
The other shows the three others held — a Briton, a Swede and a Dutch national — surrounded by four armed men, their faces similarly masked.
On Thursday, AQIM released a statement saying they were behind the abductions to the ANI agency and to AFP’s Rabat office, accusing the two French nationals of working for the French intelligence service.
“We will soon make our demands known to France and Mali,” the statement added.
Lazarevic and Verdon were seized at gunpoint from their hotel in the town of Hombori near the border with Niger on November 24.
The next day gunmen snatched a Swede, a Dutchman and a man with dual British-South African nationality from a restaurant on Timbuktu’s central square. They killed a German with them who tried to resist.
“We deny all responsibility in the kidnappings of the Europeans from the Tindouf camp,” the statement said.
