Al-Qaeda’s north African branch said in a statement on Saturday that eight European hostages it is holding are alive and well, promising to release a new video of the five Frenchmen among them.
Earlier in the day demonstrations were held in several towns and cities in France in a show of support for four of the French hostages who have been held by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) for 1,000 days.
Thierry Dol, Daniel Larribe, Pierre Legrand and Marc Feret — mostly working for French public nuclear giant Areva and its subcontractor Satom — were kidnapped in Niger by al-Qaeda-linked militants on Sept. 16, 2010.
Francoise Larribe, wife of Daniel, was also captured, but was released in 2011.
“We would like to reassure the families and parents of the hostages of their childrens’ safety ... We will soon, God willing, air a new video showing the five French hostages,” AQIM said in a statement reproduced on several jihadist Web sites.
The fifth French hostage, Serge Lazarevic, was kidnapped in November 2011 in northeast Mali.
There were no details given of the nationalities and identities of the three other hostages mentioned in the AQIM statement.
Saturday’s demonstrations in France gathered supporters and family members in Paris, Saint-Cere, Nimes, Nantes and Orleans.
“One thousand days is unbearable, but hope remains to find them alive,” Larribe’s nephew, Aurelien Pigeat, said.
In April, French President Francois Hollande announced France would not buckle under pressure to pay ransom for hostages, saying that by applying discreet measures in such situations, France could handle them more efficiently.
Hollande yesterday said he had “every reason to believe that the hostages are alive,” and that Paris was “always seeking contacts” to free them.
“We are always seeking contacts, we have every reason to think that the hostages are alive but we must try to free them,” Hollande said during a visit to Qatar.
Hollande added that the situation was “unbearable” for the relatives of the hostages, but said that “while there is this anxiety, there is this will to free them.”
He stressed the need to do so through reliable contacts, and “not with intermediaries who put themselves forward and who we know have only come looking for benefits for themselves.”
The French president also explained his government’s silence on the hostages.
“I do not have to give updates on the hostages because, first of all, I know what it means to the families [of the hostages] and I do not want to give them false hopes or, on the other hand, signs which would be discouraging,” he said.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
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
RSS