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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NickSE who wrote (98413)	5/16/2003 12:23:16 PM
From: NickSE	Respond to of 281500

I bet those terrorists learned their lesson...ng Sahara hostages freed through ransom 213.159.10.102 PARIS - The 17 European hostages liberated Tuesday in the Algerian Sahara from alleged Islamic terrorists came free after a ransom was paid, not as a result of an assault by the Algerian army, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported Friday. Citing "authorized Algerian and Swiss sources", RFI said that several millions of dollars in ransom was paid to free the hostages; 10 Austrians, six Germans and one Swedish national. Algerian media and the Algerian army had declared that the hostages were freed after a pitched battle with at least 10 kidnappers armed with Kalashnikovs. Nine of the kidnappers and one Algerian soldier were reported to have been killed in the fighting. "There was no assault, and there were no victims," RFI reported. The liberation of the hostages was "only a step in the negotiations tied to a ransom of several million dollars", RFI said. In addition, the radio station reported that the kidnappers were not members of an Islamic terrorist group called the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), as claimed by Algerian authorities. Instead, the kidnappers are headed by a shadowy figure named Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who has ties to the GSPC but was acting on his own, the report said. Negotiations were reportedly continuing between the kidnappers and Algeria, Switzerland and Germany to secure the freedom of the remaining 15 hostages, 10 Germans, four Swiss and one Dutch national. The 32 European tourists went missing between February 22 and early April while exploring the southern Algerian Sahara in all- terrain vehicles and motorcycles.