VOA标准英语2009年-Al-Qaida Affiliated Groups Claim Respo

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Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb is claiming responsibility for last month's kidnapping of three Spanish aid workers in Mauritania and a Frenchman in Mali.

Scott Stearns | Dakar 08 December 2009

 
Undated handout¹ photo with unknown dateline supplied by the Gerardmer-Tidarmene association shows Pierre Camatte (R), 61, posing with an unidentified man. Camatte was kidnapped overnight on 25 Nov 2009 in Menaka, northern Mali.

A terrorist group affiliated² with al-Qaida is claiming responsibility for last month's kidnapping of three Spanish aid workers in Mauritania and a Frenchman in Mali.  

The Algerian-based group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb made the kidnapping claim in an audio tape given to the Al Jazeera television network.

A man identifying himself as Saleh Abu Mohammad says that France and Spain will be informed later about the kidnappers³' demands.

Spain says it can not confirm the validity of the claim, but is investigating the report.

Three Spanish aid workers were kidnapped November 29 south of the Mauritanian city, Nouadhibou, on the road to the capital, Nouakchott.  Gunmen abducted⁴ a Frenchman in eastern Mali, November 26.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb is a Sunni organization which was formerly⁵ known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat.  It began as an insurrection against Algeria's secular⁶ military rulers after they canceled parliament elections in 1992, when it appeared a coalition⁷ of Islamist groups might take power.

It has since expanded and aligned⁸ itself with the broader al-Qaida terrorist network, claiming responsibility for suicide bombings in Algeria last year and the kidnapping of two Austrian tourists in Tunisia who were later freed in Mali.

The group also claimed responsibility for last December's kidnapping of Canadian diplomat⁹ Robert Fowler and his aide in Niger, as well as the abduction of four European tourists returning from a nomadic¹⁰ cultural festival in January.  One of those tourists was killed.

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb says it killed an American teacher in Nouakchott in June, because he was allegedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity.

It is considered a terrorist group by the U.S. State Department and the European Union.