Courier Mail
From:AFP
Ransom demand: A videograb shows an al-Qaida splinter group with European hostages kidnapped in Algeria. The terrorists want 30 million euros to free three aid workers. Picture: AFP/Serge Daniel Source: AFP
AN AL-Qaida splinter group wants 30 million euros ($37 million) to free three kidnapped European aid workers.
“The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa is demanding 30 million euros to free two Spanish nationals and the Italian woman,” a source close to the mediators said yesterday.
“Their respective countries know about this.”
The kidnapping was staged in Tindouf, western Algeria, in a refugee camp run by the Polisario Front which seeks Western Sahara’s independence from Morocco.
The Front initially blamed the kidnapping on Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
On December 12, a video showing armed men flanking two women – one Spanish and the other Italian – and a Spanish man was made public by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad In West Africa (Jamat Tawhid Wal Jihad Fi Garbi Afriqqiya).
Security sources said it had broken off from the main group AQIM in order to spread jihad to west Africa and not confine themselves just to the Maghreb or Sahel regions.
The group also released another video showing six dark-skinned, turbaned men speaking of their ideological references, including al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar but putting more emphasis on historical figures of west African Islam.
Also yesterday, the group claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a police base in southern Algeria which left 23 people wounded according to the paramilitary gendarmerie. One of them was in serious condition.
“We inform you that we are behind the explosion that occurred this morning at Tamanrasset,” said a message sent to AFP and signed by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa.
The national APS news agency quoted the gendarmerie as saying that 15 gendarmes, five members of the civil protection organisation and three passers-by were taken to hospital.
One gendarme was in critical condition, the report said.
The gendarmerie said “a terrorist” driving a Toyota 4×4 targeted the main entrance of the base in Tamanrasset, 1,970 kilometres south of Algiers at 7.45 am local time yesterday.
The website of the Algerian Arabic-language daily En Nahar said the bomber was blown apart in the blast, which also caused major damage to the building.
It was the first time such an attack had been reported in the area.
The Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (Jamat Tawhid Wal Jihad Fi Garbi Afriqqiya) surfaced in December, when it claimed to be holding three Westerners kidnapped from a Western Sahara refugee camp in Algeria in October.
Security sources said it had broken off from the main group, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), in order to spread jihad to west Africa and not confine themselves just to the Maghreb or Sahel regions.
The group released a video of the abducted aid workers and another showing six dark-skinned, turbaned men speaking of their ideological references, including al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar but putting more emphasis on historical figures of west African Islam.
Also in December, Mali and Algeria agreed to step up coordination in efforts to root out al-Qaida-linked groups in the region.
Al-Qaida-linked groups have been active in Algeria, Mali, Niger and Mauritania for a decade but their activity has picked up since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi scattered the slain Libyan strongman’s arsenal across the region.
In April 2010, the four countries formed a Committee of Joint Chiefs (CEMOC), based in Tamanrasset, to coordinate their military efforts against AQIM.
