Al-Qaeda main suspect in Niger kidnappings

Al-Qaeda’s north African wing is the prime suspect in the kidnapping of five French and two African workers from a uranium mining town in Niger, officials said yesterday.

Security sources in Niger and Algeria said yesterday that the gunmen and their hostages had “crossed the border” between Niger and Mali and were in the Malian desert, security sources said.

Before dawn on Thursday, gunmen kidnapped an employee of the French nuclear group Areva and his wife, both French, and five others, including a Togolese and a Madagascan, from Satom, a subsidiary of construction giant Vinci.

Niger and French authorities said they were fully mobilised, working together to track down the kidnappers, who carried out an audacious and apparently well-prepared operation, seizing the victims from their homes near Areva’s uranium mine at Arlit, 800 kilometres northeast of the capital Niamey.

“One could imagine it’s the same groups, at least the AQIM movement,” French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told Europe 1 radio, adding that he feared it was the same gang that had murdered a French hostage in July.

“But I can’t be certain, because no-one has claimed responsibility.”

The foreign ministry said it had received no claim or ransom demand and could not draw a definitive conclusion about the kidnappers, despite concerns that they may be linked to the north African wing, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

French and Mauritanian soldiers launched an attack on a suspected Al-Qaeda base in the Malian desert on July 22, killing seven militants but failing to find the hostage who was later murdered.

AQIM later called for revenge against France and labelled French President Nicolas Sarkozy an “enemy of God”.