Three more foreigners abducted, one killed in Mali: sources

The incident brings the total of foreigners held in the vast Sahel region to nine. By Kambou Sia (AFP/File)

HOMBORI, Mali (AFP) - An armed gang of kidnappers abducted three foreigners and killed a fourth in the centre of the ancient tourist city of Timbuktu in northern Mali Friday, security sources said.

The victim who was shot dead after trying to resist his abduction was German, according to a local government official in Timbuktu.

Of the three people abducted, one is Swedish, one Dutch and one of dual British-South African nationality, said the official.

The kidnappers struck as the four were in a restaurant on the central square of Timbuktu, the sources said.

Mali's government described the spate of kidnappings as an "an attack on the country's security and stability" which "reaffirms (our) determination and unfailing commitment to any action needed to guarantee peace, security and stability".

The latest kidnapping came after two French nationals described as geologists were abducted by an armed gang from their hotel in the eastern village of Hombori near the border with Niger early Thursday.

At least a dozen French soldiers on a training mission in the region have now joined Mali's army in the hunt for the pair, according to an AFP journalist in the Hombori region.

Although there has been no immediate claim of responsibility, the incidents are the latest in a series of abductions of foreigners believed to be the work of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

AQIM has bases in the northern Mali desert from which it organises raids and kidnappings and deals in the trafficking of weapons and drugs.

Friday's incident brings the total of foreigners held in the vast Sahel region to nine.

The 1:00 am (0100 GMT) raid at the Dombia hotel in Hombori bore all the hallmarks of AQIM, which also operates in Niger, Mauritania and Algeria.

The captives, named in documents seen by AFP as Philippe Verdon and Serge Lazarevic, had arrived on Tuesday night.

They had been sent by the company Mande Construction Immobiliere to take soil samples in the Hombori region where it plans to build a cement factory.

Lazarevic, described by a witness as a large man while Verdon was said to be "more frail", had just completed their first day's work on the ground when they were kidnapped.

The watchman at the hotel said that "the kidnappers were armed to the teeth (...) I was tied up and told to point out the rooms of the Frenchmen, whom they brutally took away."

The kidnapping was "well organised", said a source in the security forces at Hombori. "We think that these people came from one of Mali's neighbouring countries to take part in the operation."

Police said five people had been arrested including the Frenchmen's guide, named as Ibrahim Ould Bah.

Northern Mali is classified as a "red zone" by the French authorities, which is a recommendation that travel there be avoided. Hombori is in the "orange zone" to the south, deemed less dangerous.

The kidnappings were the first in this region situated to the south of the vast Malian desert and close to Dogon territory, which is popular with tourists because of the famed masks, architecture and dances of the Dogon people whose land lies close to the border with Burkina Faso.

A security source in Hombori said a search was under way for "two Sahrawis, two Algerians and a Malian known for drug trafficking between the camps in Tindouf (housing Sahrawi refugees from Western Sahara) in west Algeria and the Sahel.

AQIM is still holding four French nationals abducted in Niger in September 2010.

The four were among seven people kidnapped at Arlit, the main uranium mining town in Niger. They included an executive of the French nuclear giant Areva and his wife, both French, with five employees of a sub-contractor of Areva, who were identified as three French men, a Togolese and a Madagascan.

The French woman and the two African men were freed on February 24, but the others are still being held.