Al-Qaeda branch releases pictures of abducted Westerners
Al-Qaeda's north African wing on Friday released to a news agency what it said were two photographs of five Westerners kidnapped in Mali last month.
Mauritanian news agency ANI, which has in the past has carried statements from Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM), said the group released the pictures to support a statement issued a day earlier in which it claimed 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 being held -- a Briton, a Swede and a Dutch national -- surrounded by four armed men, their faces similarly masked.
On Thursday, AQIM sent a statement to ANI and AFP's Rabat office, accusing the two French nationals of working for the French intelligence service.
The kidnappings were "in response to repeated aggression in France against Muslims from Sahel countries," and "a legitimate reaction against" the European country's policies, the statement read.
"We will soon make our demands known to France and Mali," it 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.
In the statement, AQIM denied it had carried out an October kidnapping of three European aid workers -- two Italians and a Spaniard snatched from a refugee camp in Tindouf in western Algeria.
"We deny all responsibility in the kidnappings of the Europeans from the Tindouf camp," it said.
The release of the hostage photos occurred shortly before a meeting in Nouakchott of 10 defence ministers from around the Mediterranean -- Spain, France, Italy, Malta, Portugal, Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco and Mauritania.
The focus of the talks is the flood of weapons into Sahel countries following the ouster and killing of Libyan strongman Moamer Kadhafi.
The Sahel is a vast desert swath across north Africa.
"All participants, regional and international, are invited to get involved one way or another in the battle against criminality that has no borders," a senior Mauritanian official told AFP.
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