NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania — Al Qaeda’s north African wing yesterday released two photographs of what it said were five Westerners they kidnapped last month to the online Mauritanian news agency ANI.
The agency, which in the past has carried statements from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, said the group had released the photographs to support a statement issued a day earlier claiming the abductions.
One of the photographs shows two of the hostages — French nationals Serge Lazarevic and Philippe Verdon — with three armed men behind them, their faces obscured by turbans.
The other shows the three others held — a South African, a Swede and a Dutch national — surrounded by four armed men, their faces similarly masked.
On Thursday, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb released a statement to ANI and to AFP’s office in Rabat, Morocco, saying it was behind the abductions and accusing the two French nationals of working for the French intelligence service.
“We will soon make our demands known to France and Mali,” the statement said.
Verdon and Lazarevic were seized at gunpoint from their hotel in the Malian town of Hombori near the border with Niger on Nov.24.
The next day, gunmen snatched the Swede, Dutchman and a man with South African nationality from a restaurant on Timbuktu’s central square. They killed a German with them who tried to resist.