Algeria has made an important breakthrough in its search for 31 missing European tourists with the discovery of one of their vehicles and confirmation from a senior army official that they are in the hands of more than a dozen Islamists.
The tourists have been separated into two groups and are being held in canyons and gullies near the town of Illizi, which lies near the Libyan border some 900 miles south-east of Algiers, a senior security official told the French newspaper Le Monde yesterday.
The 15 Germans, 10 Austrians, four Swiss, a Dutchman and a Swede who, while travelling in seven different groups, have gone missing since mid-February, are being held by rebels led by local Islamist leader Emir Ammari.
”They are well and their lives are not in danger,” the Algerian official told Le Monde. He said the hostages appeared to have plenty of water, but were beginning to run out of food.
The Algerian army is respecting the wishes of Germany and several other countries that there should be no attempt to liberate the hostages by force. Security officials have been ordered to let the Islamists go free if they release their captives. ”We will have a chance to catch them another day,” the official said.
He speculated, however, that the group – part of the armed Salafist Group for Call and Combat – might seek to exchange the hostages for Algerian terrorists jailed recently for planning bomb attacks in Strasbourg.
News that the tourists and their captors had been located came after a blue Iveco truck was found abandoned 90 miles west of Illizi by some of the 5,000 Algerian troops searching the vast desert region for them.
The vehicle, which had its caravan shell burned out, had belonged to a married couple from Augsburg, in Germany, who went missing on March 8.
The truck was missing its battery and had been ”practically buried under sand”, according to one official. Two of Emir Ammari’s men had recently been involved in a firefight with Algerian troops nearby, Le Monde reported.
Like the other missing Euro peans, the German couple were using GPS satellite guidance to travel through the desert, which in Algeria alone covers 775 000 square miles (2m square kilometres). Algerian tourist officials have expressed dismay that the missing tourists had not taken local guides with them.
The search for them has concentrated on a triangle formed by the towns of Tamanrasset, Ouargla and Djanet.
Officially, Algeria has refused to comment on the tourists’ whereabouts. A similar silence from the five European countries involved has prompted various rumours about their fate.
On Sunday a senior official in charge of search operations told the Algerian newspaper El Watan that he did not believe Islamists could have kidnapped the tourists because such groups did not normally hold on to hostages.
”They tend to kill them,” Col Messaoud Benboudria said. ”I am deeply convinced that the tourists are alive and are, perhaps, outside our national territory.”
Le Monde reported that Algerian officials had been concerned that the hostage-takers might try to move their captives south to Niger or further north inside Algeria, where other Islamist groups are active.
News that the tourists had been located, however, was confirmed independently to Agence France Press by a diplomatic source in neighbouring Mali on Sunday.
”The 31 have been spotted and our Algerian brothers are working in double quick time to ensure their release,” the official said.
The Algerian newspaper al-Khabar reported on Sunday that the army was besieging a group of some 300 Islamists near Emir Ammari’s home town of Tebessa. -Guardian Unlimited Â