An al-Qaeda-linked jihadist group based in northern Mali said on Wednesday it had freed three European hostages who were kidnapped in western Algeria in October.
“Consider them freed, because our conditions were respected,” said Mohamed Ould Hicham, a leader of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO).
He said a ransom had been paid for the three aid workers — a Spanish man and woman and an Italian woman — referring to it as a “debt,” but he would not be drawn on the amount.
“The hostages were freed not far from Gao [northeastern Mali], we handed them to a delegation from Burkina Faso. They are currently with the Burkinabes,” Hicham said.
This was confirmed by a military source in Burkina Faso, which is often involved in mediation for hostage releases. The Burkinabe delegation was to return early yesterday with the hostages to Ouagadougou, the source said.
Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi confirmed the release of the Italian woman Rossella Urru, describing it as “beautiful news.” Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti expressed his “great joy.”
In Madrid, a spokesman for the foreign minister said: “The liberation process is almost finished, it was delayed by a sandstorm ... A plane was sent to bring home the two Spaniards.”
They are Enric Gonyalons and Ainhoa Fernandez Rincon.
The hostages were abducted from a Sahrawi refugee camp in Tindouf, Algeria. Sahrawis are people from the disputed Western Saharan territory that abutts Morocco, Mauritania and Algeria.
The previously unknown group MUJAO claimed responsibility, presenting themselves as an offshoot of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
In May, MUJAO demanded the release of two Sahrawis arrested by Mauritania for their role in the kidnapping, as well as 30 million euros (US$36.8 million) in ransom.
They threatened to kill the Spanish man if their demands were not met.
In Nouakchott, online news agency Alakhbar reported that among Islamist prisoners exchanged for the hostages was a Sahrawi called Memine Ould Oufkir, one of those arrested in the wake of the kidnapping.
MUJAO last week said they had freed three of seven Algerian diplomats kidnapped during the takeover of Gao in late March.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
RSS