SAS Team 'Sent To Rescue Kidnapped Britons'

By David Blair, Diplomatic Correspondent and Dagnachew Teklu in Addis Ababa
Last Updated: 3:21pm GMT 05/03/2007

An SAS team has been sent to Africa to rescue five Britons kidnapped in Ethiopia should diplomatic efforts fail to secure their release, according to reports.

An Ethiopian helicopter escorting an expedition in Dalol, in the desert region of Afar, where the search was on yesterday for the kidnappers of five Britons and 13 Ethiopians

Sixty soldiers have already arrived in neighbouring Dijibouti, the Daily Mirror newspaper reported this morning. The Ministry of Defence has refused to comment.

The news came amid reports that two shot-up British Embassy vehicles had been seen abandoned by the side of the road in a remote village where the Britons, who are employees of the British Embassy in Addis Ababa or their relatives, disappeared.

An Associated Press television cameraman saw the two vehicles in Hamedali, a remote village that is the last staging post before the region’s famous salt lakes. The vehicles - a Toyota Land Cruiser and a Land Rover Discovery - still had luggage, shoes and mobile phones inside.

The newspaper says the unit are members of the SAS's Standby Squadron, troops set up to respond to crises around the world at a moment's notice.

British embassy officials were reported to be making "some progress" last night in negotiations to free the Britons, who were abducted from the remote Afar region of Ethiopia, near the border with Eritrea.

A team of Foreign Office hostage experts arrived in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to help with talks and yesterday moved up to the region where the group went missing.

They are being helped by five Ethiopians who were kidnapped with the Britons last Thursday and later released. The five, who were believed to be among 13 Ethiopians travelling with the British party as guards and drivers, were found by the Ethiopian army near the border with Eritrea.

They could provide intelligence on the circumstances of the abduction and the whereabouts of the hostages. The Foreign Office has not disclosed the identities of the five Britons. It has said that all are either on the staff of the British Embassy in Addis Ababa or relatives of diplomats serving there.

One of the hostages is believed to be Rosanna Moore, the Italian-born wife of Michael Moore, head of the British Council in Ethiopia.

Last night Attilo Vuga, the mayor of her home town of Udine, northern Italy, said Mrs Moore was a "level-headed woman and will be doing her best to keep things calm and try and resolve the situation".

"All we want is for this to be over as quickly as possible so that when she is released and comes back here we can throw a big party for her."

The British party were abducted in the desert of the Danakil Depression, populated largely by the Afar tribe, near the remote border with Eritrea. This highly sensitive area is the scene of a long-running armed confrontation between the two countries over their disputed frontier.

Ismael Ali Sero, the Ethiopian administrator of the Afar region, accused Eritrea of masterminding the kidnapping. He said that about 50 "Eritrean commandoes" abducted the hostages and spirited them over the border to a military camp called Arata about 12 miles inside Eritrea.

But British officials declined to endorse this allegation. At a briefing organised by the British Embassy in Addis Ababa, a spokesman said: "We don't have any idea who is behind the kidnapping. We are working with Ethiopian government and other countries on the matter."

The embassy spokesman added that no negotiations for the release of the hostages had begun because the identity of the kidnappers was still unknown. The team of hostage experts will first try to establish the location of the hostages and the identity of their captors.

Once this has been achieved, negotiations for the release can begin. If these fail, a rescue operation conducted by British special forces is possible.

"Obviously, we are working as hard as we possibly can to identify their location and to secure their release," said Geoff Hoon, the Foreign Office minister.

"It is a matter of grave importance for the Foreign Office, as it would be with any British tourist," Mr Hoon told ITV.

"But obviously staff in the Foreign Office feel particularly strongly because it is their people, their families, and a great deal of effort is being made to secure their freedom."

Eritrea officially denied any involvement, saying that the allegations were "crazy".

The Danakil Depression is one of Africa's most troubled regions. As well as the border confrontation, it is also the scene of a low level insurgency waged by guerrillas seeking a united Afar state.

Cars Used by Kidnapped Travelers Found in Ethiopia (Update3)

By Caroline Alexander

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- A team searching for five British nationals kidnapped last week in Ethiopia found three of their vehicles near the border with Eritrea.

One of the cars bore eight shrapnel holes in the driver's door while a small explosion appears to have occurred in the passenger's seat of a Land Rover, the British Broadcasting Corp reported. A third car was much more badly damaged, it said.

The Britons, all U.K. embassy staff and their relatives, were sightseeing when they were seized early on March 1 by unidentified gunmen along with 13 Ethiopian guides. Eritrea has denied claims its forces seized them in a cross-border raid and no group has claimed responsibility for the abductions.

The discovery of the vehicles highlighted the seriousness of the situation, a Foreign Office spokeswoman in London said by telephone. The spokeswoman, who declined to be identified, said she couldn't provide further information.

The vehicles were found abandoned by the side of the road near the village of Berhale in the northeast Afar region that borders Eritrea, according to the Associated Press.

A British Foreign Office emergency team is working in Ethiopia to assist the British embassy in Addis Ababa in trying to locate the travelers.

The Ministry of Defence declined to comment on a Daily Mirror report that 60 members of Britain's elite SAS Standby Squadron were planning a raid to free the group should talks to secure their release fail.

``This is a matter of serious concern and we are doing everything we can,'' U.K. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said in Brussels today. ``We are working very closely with the Ethiopian government at all levels, as well as with others in the region, to secure their safe and early return.''

Guides Found

Five of the abducted Ethiopians guides have been found, the state-run Ethiopian News Agency reported yesterday without saying whether they had been released or escaped.

Hussein Idriss, one of the guides, told reporters today the group had been captured by men wearing Eritrean army uniforms, adding that he was let go after walking for 24-30 kilometers (15- 18 miles) toward the Eritrean border, according to Agence France- Presse.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a border war between 1998 and 2000 that left as many as 100,000 people dead and 250,000 Eritreans displaced. Relations between the two countries have been tense since then, and despite a peace-deal, the status of the 1,000-kilometer border has yet to be defined.

Robert Dewar, U.K. Ambassador to Ethiopia, said all teams were working hard to ``establish the facts'' surrounding the disappearances. Further British staff will join in the effort if they are needed, he said.

``If, as has been speculated, the group is being held against their will, it may be they have been victims of mistaken identity,'' he said in an e-mailed statement. ``They are husbands, fathers and sons; wives, mothers and daughters. Their families miss them terribly and want them home.''

The U.K. Foreign Office amended its travel advice for Ethiopia, advising against all trips to the Afar and Danakil regions in the northeast of the country.

The Dalol region in which the tourists disappeared is about 500 miles (800 kilometers) north of Addis Ababa and is a sparsely inhabited area visited for its volcanic geological formations and its salt mines.

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