Posted on 04/29/2003 11:24:08 AM PDT by Angelus Errare
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 Europeans, 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.
The two Algerian Islamist groups are the GIA and GSPC, both of which operate under al-Qaeda's aegis. They've been fighting a civil war against the Algerian government for the last decade that has killed over 100,000 people.
That's insane.
Who gives a sh*t about Euro weenie tourists? Pas moi.
Actually, the terrorists probably are receiving critical intel from the French (not kidding).
Koffi has more major things on his mind:
"Pedikaris Alive, or the Riszuli Dead! "
T. Roosevelt
barbary pirate link provides below text:
The Barbary pirates were mostly Berbers, Arabs, and other Muslims, but some came from Christian Europe. The pirates used small, fast-moving vessels to capture trading ships and their cargoes. They held the crews and passengers for ransom or sold them as slaves.
Each of the four Barbary States had its own ruler. He was usually a military strongman who had grabbed the throne by assassinating the ruler or murdering rival family members.
In 1662, England made the first treaty with a Barbary ruler. This set the pattern for similar treaties by other European nations trading in the Mediterranean. Typically, a Barbary peace treaty required a nation to pay "tribute" to the pirate ruler, who would then call off attacks on the nation's ships. Tribute usually took the form of a large payment of money plus annual payments. The annual payments might be cash, military supplies, or expensive presents for the ruler. A particular treaty might also include ransom money for the release of a nation's citizens held captive by the Barbary country.
The Barbary rulers frequently demanded that nations "renew" their treaties for even greater amounts of tribute. Until a nation agreed to new terms, its ships remained fair game for the pirates.
The war fleets of the European powers could easily have defeated the Barbary pirate ships. Yet the Europeans agreed to the tribute treaties. Nations like England believed that by paying tribute they not only bought protection for themselves but also redirected the pirates to wreak havoc on the merchant ships of competing nations.
The American colonies traded extensively in the Mediterranean before the Revolutionary War. During this time, British tribute treaties with the Barbary States protected American ships. But after the colonies broke away from England, this protection vanished. Many British believed that the Barbary pirates would eliminate American commercial competition in the Mediterranean. One British official gloated, "The Americans cannot protect themselves. They cannot pretend to [have] a navy."
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