German anti-terrorist squad ready to join hunt for tourists in the Sahara

Telegraph ^ | 5/4/03 | Tony Paterson

[Ranger]

Germany is poised to send its crack anti-terrorist GSG9 police unit to Algeria to help free 31 European tourists thought to have been kidnapped after they vanished in the Sahara between February and April this year.

European governments are frustrated by the lack of progress made by Algeria in finding the tourists - 15 Germans, 10 Austrians, four Swiss, a Dutchman and a Swede - who had been travelling in several groups when they disappeared.

There has been no official word on their whereabouts or of any ransom demand from their kidnappers - believed to be members of the Salafist Organisation for Prayer and Combat (GSPC), a militant Islamic group with links to al-Qaeda. There have, however, been several unconfirmed sightings of the tourists.

The GSG9 is expected to play a leading role in the search. Germany, Austria and Switzerland have already sent 11 specialist police to assist the Algerians but the officers have been confined to Algiers, 600 miles to the north, and are said to be becoming exasperated. They were refused permission to examine vehicles found abandoned in the desert by the Algerians. "We have to wait until they tell us something," said one European officer.

If the GSG9 gets the go-ahead, it would be only the second time that it has been deployed abroad. In 1977, after a shoot-out at Mogadishu airport, the German squad freed 87 hostages from an airliner seized by Arab hijackers supporting Germany's Red Army Faction. Officials in Berlin confirmed last week that Chancellor Gerhard Schroder has talked to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria to discuss ways to resolve the crisis.

Although the German government has refused to confirm that it is considering armed intervention to free the hostages, a German army "flying hospital" aircraft is reportedly on standby, ready to be sent to Algeria. Suggesting that the deployment of a GSG9 unit was imminent, Mr Schroder said Germany was ready to send further German "specialists" to Algeria. "Germany is ready to solve the crisis jointly with Algeria," the chancellor said last week.

The tourists began to disappear in a remote region of south-eastern Algeria in early February. A first group of four German-speaking Swiss overland trekkers vanished near the Libyan border, to be followed by a party of 11 German motorcyclists. Four other parties in vehicles also went missing in the region during March. The last people to disappear were two Austrians who failed to turn up for their ferry home from Tunis on April 11. More than 12,000 Algerian army and police units equipped with helicopters and heat-seeking devices have been combing a region near the desert town of Illizi for two months.

There have been few clues, although a message claiming "We are still alive" was reportedly found in the desert two weeks ago. A part of one of the missing vehicles was discovered by Italian tourists at the end of March.

The hunt is believed to be focused on a mountainous region in southern Algeria, scored by deep canyons and numerous caves. According to some reports from Algiers, the army has surrounded an area in which it believes the tourists are being held but has held back from a penetrating raid because of worries expressed by European governments.

Last week a French radio station reported that the tourists were being held by an Algerian smuggler, Mokhtar Bel Mokhtar, who was said to be demanding several million pounds from the Algerian authorities for his captives' release. There is confusion over the status of Bel Mokhtar, 31, but some reports say that he recently appointed himself regional commander of the GSPC. The organisation split from Algeria's main armed Islamic militant group, the GIA, in 1997 and sent members for training in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

[Bonaparte]

I demand that Germany get a UN resolution before unilaterally violating Algeria's borders and that a UN team of inspectors be sent first to take all the time they need to account for these missing people.

[Ranger]

I wonder how the German public views this situation?

[Michael81Dus]

As one from the German public, I may answer your question.
Today´s news also reported what you posted here, and reactions seem to be relieved that finally something is going to happen. We´re concerned what happened to our fellow-citizen and we want to know the motives.

I will be very glad when our squad interferes. Knowing that ca. 20-30 western tourists are hostages of Islamic terrorists is awful. At least now there´s action and our officials are going to do something!

[spectre]

"...their kidnappers - believed to be a militant Islamic group with links to al-Qaeda.."

Militant Islamic kidnappers in Algeria?

Gee..never would have thought that could happen.

[Michael81Dus]

Well, if you wanted to have an adventure and travelled through the Sahara - and then you were captured by Islamic terrorists, you would realize that this could be more than an "adventure".

Seriously, who had imagined that tourists in the Sahara would become victims of terrorism? You?

[spectre]

"Seriously, who had imagined that tourists in the Sahara would become victims of terrorism? You?"

Yes, me and anyone who does a quick GOOGLE search. Algeria is and has been a hotbed of Islamic terrorism to include the kidnapping and murder of foreigners. See below.

"Whom does the GIA target? Both Algerians and others. The GIA's massacres of civilians reached their height in the mid-1990s. Other GIA targets have included Algerian journalists, intellectuals, and secular schools. More recently, the GIA was thought to be behind two bombings in Algiers in August 2001.

The GIA is also accused of killing more than one hundred foreigners, mostly Europeans, since 1993."

It is not a place I would put on my vacation list - but to each his own.

Regards

[Michael81Dus]

I wouldn´t visit GIA either, but generally noone -me included- wouldn´t think that terrorists choose the desert to search for victims. Taking hostages in hotels, etc. ok - but in the desert?

[McGavin999]

Perhaps the German people have finally figured out that retreat from terrorists doesn't work. Facing them head on, like our "cowboy" president does.

Good, it's time they figured it out and stopped all this silly anti-Americanism and started facing up to their responsibilies as a civilized nation.

[Michael81Dus]

Sir, I may you remind you that Germany honestly is engaged in the war against terrorism and has tighten up laws against possible-terrorists. The Iraq-war was the first time since WW2 that Germanys government was not aligned with the US in security matters and even in these times it fulfilled the wishes of the Bush Administration (leading ISAF in Kabul and protecting US facilities in Germany with some thousand German soldiers).

WE STOOD UP AND FIGHT TERRORISM, which is directed not only against America but against the entire western world (e.g. Bali or Tunisia synagogue).

[desertcry]

I second that resolution, with the condition that the UN send hans blix to supervise the operation. Thus, it will be totally assured that no kidnaping victims will ever be foumd.

[Bonaparte]

"Taking hostages in hotels, etc. ok - but in the desert?"

Michael, you've never heard of "The Searchers"?